Finding your startup tribe with Innovation Bay’s Ian Gardiner

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0:49Hello and welcome, Budri Gamawara from the Gettigal lands here in Sydney. It's time for Startup360. I'm Simon Thompson, leader of StartupDaddy.net. And I'm joined by my fabulous co-host. Julie Terrell. Welcome. Great to have you and Magella together in the hot seats last week talking to Lucinda. That was a cracking conversation. And can I say it is fun just to be a spectator. It is wonderful to listen. And I thought that was such an interesting convo. Yeah. So I think I'm going to go away more often. It was fun. It was a great conversation. Great to get to know Majella and Lucinda. It's great to have Majella back.

1:30She hopefully will be back around. She's got a new gig, which is great to see, but we're hoping to get her back in the seat sometime down the track. Before I go any further, I do want to say that Startup360 is supported by Deal, Hire, Manage and Pay Anyone Anywhere. So thank you so much to Deal. Now tell me who is our guest today, Julie? Before we get to our guest, I'm curious about Japan. Oh, my pin. Well, this week is Legacy Week and if you're unaware of the organisation, it looks after the families of service people generally who've lost their lives and need a little bit of help to get through everything.

2:14It's been a service people run organisation. You'll probably see people from the Army, Navy and Air Force this week with a little tray. I did. I was curious. Thank you for putting that together for me. So I got this little pin which helps fund their annual fundraiser and it's tax deductible. If you've had a major exit and you're looking for somewhere for a tax deduction where you get all 47 % back of your tax, then I would suggest Legacy is a wonderful organisation caring for the families who really need some love and support, especially if their loved one has given the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

2:59So I love supporting them. It's something I wear very proudly, especially coming from a family where many people served in the armed forces. So that's that. Now, our guest this week. To answer your question, we have the fabulous Ian Gardner, who will be talking to us about his journey from Scotland here, his little bit of a love life. Yeah. The Billy Connolly of investors. Okay. Billy was also from there. Scotland. And what I love that he really focuses on community and the human interaction and what he's built at Innovation Bay to help founders learn from one another and do peer coaching. So I find that to be really powerful and watching and facilitating it myself how helpful it is off of Claude, off of AI and really human interactions.

3:53And so Ian is here to talk about community and the VC world and Angel. And speaking of Glaswegians, because the Luggies were on recently, a bit of trivia, famous Australian TV awards, they're named after John Luggie Baird, who was a Glaswegian and one of the great innovators when it came to television. So that's why they're called the Logies after John Luggie Baird. So use that at your next pub trivia night. Will do. A couple of things I want to talk about for the deal of Spiel. First one and the most important one, I reckon, is that the Spark Festival is coming back. It's on from the 21st of September, launched this week.

4:33The program is available at spark.org.au. There's going to be about 60 events. Startup Daily is plotting a couple. I think we're hopefully going to be doing a panel with some of the winners from the Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards. And there may be another surprise live event that we're doing along the way. I haven't lined up all the ducks at this point in time, but you never know. Right. Fingers crossed. So do check that out. And the other thing that caught my eye, and it's one of those things that I've been curious about for a while, is what's happened at Airtree with its first fund, where the investors, the LPs in that fund, have agreed to extend its shelf life for a couple more years.

5:21So it was exit time, it was 10 years old, and they voted in a majority to continue it. So it's going to be a 12-year-old fund. And I think it's interesting at this point in time as we try and figure out what's happening with the impact of AI on the great companies that we've built here over the past decade. Is now the right time to exit? Is now the right time to IPO? It was interesting. We had an AI company list on the ASX while I was away. It dipped a little bit, SCX, and has come back up. But it's fraught. I know Firmus is still looking at an IPO later this year. The rumors are now it's October, November, but they were trying for it earlier this year.

6:07And even with all the enthusiasm around AI and what's been going on with Anthropic and OpenAI in the US, it's a tricky time to navigate something like public markets. So it will be interesting to see what happens on that front. But for now I'm excited to dive into the fabulous Mr. Ian Gardner, kind of like let's say the James Bond of Australian innovation. Australian community building. He's got that fabulous accent. He does. And he's super fit. He would have made a perfect James Bond, I reckon. Agreed. The 007 of Australian Innovation. Don't go away. We'll be right back to talk with Ian Gardner.

6:51Welcome back. So glad to be here still. Absolutely. And we have a fabulous guest with the best accent in Australian startups. Besides mine? No. Best accent. I agree. His is much better. Yes. Maybe it was the Instagram feed, but they did see that the Scottish accent was the most attractive accent on the planet. Absolutely. I will take that. There you go. Yeah. If you can't see me, then the accent, go with that. So for those of you that don't recognize that voice or the face, we have Ian Gardner. Founders scale faster on Deal. Set up payroll for any business in minutes. Hire anyone, anywhere and get visas handled fast so you can stay focused on scaling.

7:37Deal takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits and compliance, so your team can grow without borders. It's why more than 37 ,000 fast-growing companies trust Deal to move fast. Visit deal.com slash 360. That's D-E-E-L dot com slash 360. He is partner at Jellix. Jellix? Jellix. Gillick's Ventures. The Romans with Jasper and Felix. Okay, Gillick's Ventures, which is an early stage VC. He has co-founded that with his wife, Andrea. I did not co-founded that. No, he did. It is not. He's General Dog's body. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, no, I'd be very careful. You know who got that wrong? Claude. Ah, really?

8:24Yes. So there you go. We'll have a conversation about that. We do have a conversation about that. We will have a conversation about that. So that is the masculine bias in AI where it hallucinated that there had to be a bloke somewhere in charge. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, Andrea is the founder and CEO and the visionary and everything. Yeah. I used to have Andrea on the old Studup Daily show and you'd see Ian running past in the nude from the show. Not quite. Yeah, I think it was during COVID. I didn't have to step in and export. Calling out that bias. Thank you. That was good. You're most welcome.

8:59You are the co-founder of Innovation Bay. Yes, I'll take that. Okay, co-founder of Innovation Bay, one of Australia's longest running founder investor communities. And we're going to talk about communities. And selfishly, what I brought you in here for was your journey through YPO as with your company Viacorp. But not just as a YPO-er, but what you've done in there as a forum member. Do you need to explain what YPO is? I will let you explain what YPO is. Well, it's not the best name in the world. young presidents organization. You don't actually need to be that young. You don't need to be called president, but it's basically for CEOs or people that manage things.

9:36You have to join before you're 45. The company needs to be relatively large. I don't know what the turnover number is now. I think it's like 15 mil or thereabouts. Yeah, so it was designed out in the US 70 years ago to help family, you know, the next generation of families, CEOs to run their business better. And it's sort of morphed and evolved. And I think there's like 35, 40 ,000 people around the world who are members. And it's just an amazing community. In addition to it, to being a community, there is a practice called Forum, which I want to go into also. So there's the introduction for Ian.

10:14Ian, fill in the blanks. What brought you here? How are you showing up these days and your journey from Scotland to Australia? I just turned 55. So I am not in the younger side of the world. And so anyway, look, it does, you know, wasn't like navel gazing reflection, but you know, I have done a fair amount. I mean, most of it has been in the entrepreneurial space. And that was somewhat tricky to get into that, because especially when I grew up in Glasgow, went to private school there, ended up, you know, I got a place at Oxford to do engineering. So, you know, very much on the rails of, you know, you should go and get a job and you know so putting your hand up saying I want to be an entrepreneur I mean that there was no folder in the careers library that said be an entrepreneur I think it's a little easier now uh because you know the internet is a thing and you know you can actually find pockets of people that will help you and talk to them about that stuff and whatnot but back then it was hard uh but I did manage it uh you know I was a child of the dot-com boom which in fact you guys will remember that but many of our listeners will not but it was the sort of late 90s, early 2000s, just, you know, a crazy amount of activity around that tech and startup world.

11:26You know, there's a company, Boo.com, it was in fashion, and I think it went from nothing, it didn't have much revenue, and it was like three years later, it was listed for some ridiculous amount. And you just wouldn't get that now, you cannot list a company. Actually, you just have to put AI on the air nowadays. Well, yeah, there's a little more substance to that, I suspect, than fashion retail. Yeah. Uh, you know, that was a tough business to be in. Whereas AI, if you get that right, can be pretty big. Uh, so yeah, I mean, I fell in love with the whole entrepreneurial world and the internet and what it could do.

11:58Now I won't go through the whole career journey, but, uh, along the way I met Andrea. Sorry? Highlights. Highlights. Yeah. So I think the main highlight was I met Andrea, uh, when I was in Scotland. Uh, she was an Aussie. She was working as a banker in London. She was Lehman Brothers. And I managed to convince her to come and live in Edinburgh with me for but she said, Yeah, I'll do that. But we've got to get married. And we're gonna move to Australia within five years. And I'm like, Oh, sure, honey, that sounds great. I was 25. She gave you a term sheet. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. No, it wasn't much negotiation in it.

12:32But it was I wasn't being dragged kicking and screaming because you know, she was an amazing woman and i did love australia because she'd brought me over for a visit um you know and that was i guess the the main part of the journey so you know i had five years in scotland went through the whole dot-com boom and bust you know the punchline of those early days was we built a supply chain but there was no demand uh you know the internet was was underpowered back then you know it was like most tech innovations it's over promises in the short term and over delivers in the long term uh and i think that's absolutely true uh well we at that stage we couldn't imagine e-commerce when you're sitting there with a 56.6 k modem watching the page download in front of you like rain running down a charles randy mcintosh window in glasgow a hundred percent uh in fact here's a good uh story in that like we we had our and we'll get on to this i think but within innovation bay we've got an angel investor network and adrian critchlow who was the founder of booking.com came along to our retreat um he was telling stories of the early days of booking.com and it was him and chris vanner who was behind list shop in switzerland and around 2000 they were talking about the uh acceptable page load time what do you think it was i would say 90 seconds 25 seconds okay if if someone was faced with a 25 second page load time this is for some crappy graphics you know not what you get and pre-iphone smoke there was no mobile the internet was terrible uh the technology behind it was bad it was pixelated like a space invaders yeah but let's i mean but that's a time to pause and reflect and be patient i'm trying to reframe it uh look anyway the reality is it has moved on since then uh i think you have to go through that area to get to the right area and we'll probably look back in 10 years assuming we We haven't self-destructed as a society.

14:29And we'll go, oh, wasn't that quaint what we were doing 10 years ago? You know, I think the pace of change has definitely increased. So to go from, you know, that story 25 years ago to now has been a long journey. You know, and I have been part of that. And it's been a real privilege to be not in the driving seat, you know, and not everything's been amazing. I mean, the business I ran when I came to Australia Viacorp was good, but it could have been better. I mean, we got to about a million bucks a month in revenue and 70 staff and it was good, but it just wasn't amazing. You know, and it's still going.

15:02It was in a good area. It was in video, but we sort of missed the tailwind. You know, we probably weren't ambitious or talented enough and we were playing against the global market in Australia before there was any community to, I mean, maybe this will bring on the forum. I didn't have a peer group to lean on to tell me what to do or what, it's not so much what to do, it's to give me examples or like wisdom from experience is maybe what I'd say with that. That just didn't exist. So we made a lot of wrong steps, which I maybe could have avoided. Yeah. So let's get into the YPO and how that helped you in finding, did you know you needed a peer group and community at that stage?

15:43No, I don't think so. But what I did know is that I loved community. um you know when i moved to australia i didn't have a network i mean i came out of scotland and i thought i knew a lot of people and you kind of did i mean i knew the the right lawyers maybe a bank or you know the people you need to be able to function and the reality is you can't function as a human or as a business without other people around you you can't function well i mean maybe you can actually function but you can't do a good job as a founder so when i moved here i i fairly rapidly realized that i didn't have that network and i think also this is maybe more about me i realized i wanted it you know i just hankered for that human connection so i mean the first person i met in fact yeah the first person i met when i got off the plane i'll just go through this there's three people i met so was was john crawl so john is now the ceo of media monitors uh you know and i went and had an interview with him like there was a rowing connection that we had so um and i went and interviewed at media monitors and he offered me a job but it was paying 50 grand a year and i'm like fuck i got a family join i can't do it and that but thanks for the offer and i love meeting him um second person i met uh that day was faden who i started innovation bay with and you know it took a year to get onto that i won't go into the whole story third person i met was ron uh who became my co-founder in bi corp so it's a pretty productive morning because we've gone on like true scope is one of uh gilix's biggest investments so you know 10 of our fund is deployed in true scope and he's an incredible ceo and founder i mean he's not he's even older than me uh john uh but he's got the energy and he's got the talent and he's just done it all but you know we just stayed in touch over that 20 years before we made the investment yeah anyway so like that was the whole reason i was telling that story was it was about the people you know and i realized that i needed that network and wanted to double down on it and and help build that for me but i guess it was a selfish altruistic part it's like if it works for me it's going to work for others no i'm going to jump ahead on that one because where in a current debate where founders are taking off to the US and there's some concern about staying local.

17:49Given people are building global companies, what would you say to them about rocking up? Is it meet three people in the moment you get off the tarmac? How do you tackle that going into another world and creating those connections? Are you talking about people who are ready from Australia or people who are coming into Australia? Are people either or, I mean, I'm sure we have international viewers, but I'm thinking about the Australians now who are going overseas to build their companies. Yeah, I'm not here to see what they should do. I mean, that is a personal choice. You don't have to be Yoda on this one.

18:27No, and I'm not going to be. I mean, what the government's doing with the tax laws and changes is not good for keeping very talented Australian founders in Australia. it just isn't. You know, it's trying to argue that 47 % is not a sensible capital gains tax number is insane. I mean, we should be arguing that 23 % is too high. You know, you look at Singapore, New Zealand is zero and, you know, it's lower in the US and you've got a bigger market and it's hard. It's always been hard. I mean, we've always had that challenge of the brain drain. I mean, there was a period where it was going the other way.

19:03I think people were post-COVID and with Trump in office, I mean, there's a lot of things about the US that just aren't as rosy or easy as you might think. But it is a massive market. It's like playing in the Premier League versus the Division II. And again, that's not a slight on Australia. I think we can do better and we do punch above our weight. Look at the decacorns per dollar invested. We're best in the world. And there's some incredible companies come out here. And I don't think what we're going to see is founders waking up, you know, young founders waking up tomorrow thinking, I'm not going to start my world changing company today because of the tax law.

19:39They won't. They will start it. But what will happen is a few years in, you're going to get their accountants and lawyers saying, what are you doing? Like, you know, the implication, if you become a billion dollar company, this is not a great outcome. You should flip up to the US now or similar. So that, I think, is an unintended consequence of this law. Yeah, I'm suddenly finding myself writing Delaware Incorporated for a lot more Australian startups. But what I'm specifically talking about going back to relationships is you rock up in the US, it's like what do I do now? How do I create those connections?

20:13What's the gardener method of creating connection and friendship? I don't think there's a method in that way and it's a bit different. It would be different for me now as it was 20 years ago. I mean, the reality is you want to build a network quickly. And there are, you know, there's the Aussie diaspora everywhere in the world. So, you know, in San Francisco, it's pretty strong. And I'm sure in London and Dubai and anywhere else, you're going to find pockets of Aussies that are interested in tech, interested in startups, interested in you. And you want to find those people and just go into them and say, what's it like here?

20:48Who should I meet? You know, it's almost the first KPI you've got when you land is I'm going to have a coffee a day for the next month. you know and every time you finish a coffee it's like who are the three people i should meet and then just keep doing that to yourself and you know you might not get the answers you want and some of those meetings will be rubbish uh and some of the people you won't like and some of them won't be helpful but there'll be one or two in there that will be game changing yeah i think that's a really important muscle to stretch is you know you say finding community is selfish it's not you're helping yourself and you're sharing with each other to help others and getting different perspectives.

21:22So, I mean, and that's what I've loved about you always been curious and willing and open and listening. And it's a skill that, you know, I, I find a lot of times I'm just going to, I see founders burying themselves. This is my problem. I'm here. And how do you lift your head up? And, and if you have stories of how that community has helped you is really what I would love to, to hear. There's always stories. I mean, it's, it's, and they don't have to be major stories it could be you know you get an intro to your co-founder and you know a world changing business i mean that's the major end or go and meet this investor who might give you millions of dollars to invest in your business and that's a game changer or a lawyer that could help transform the way you think about things it doesn't need to be big it could be small you know my philosophy has always been give first ask second um you know and if you just spend your life paying it forward then good things will happen.

22:15Yeah, and again, that's not philosophy that everyone will strive to. And I think you do need to be able to keep that in context because if you just give all the time, then you're not going to get anything and you'll never make it. And I would love for you to describe what, I talk about Forum and it's part of YPO. So what Forum is, how does it work and some of the benefits that you've gotten out of it? Yeah. Yeah. Look, it turns out that running a business is hard. Damn, why didn't anyone tell me? Who'd have thought? Yeah, and it's a tough journey. Now, whether you're the founder or even the hard CEO or even the second or third generation family member, it's kind of part of the same principle.

23:00It's like what you're trying to do is really tough. and it's the unknown unknowns like the stuff that you don't know you don't know about running a business uh you know and you can't learn that you can't go to you know do our mba at you know agsm or harvard or wherever and get taught this stuff this is stuff that you just have to learn uh at the coalface uh which is hey claude yeah what don't i know i don't know no like claude has no empathy for it i'll tell you that you're amazing and clever and strong and all the rest of but it does not understand. The people that do understand are other people on that journey.

23:37And that's the principle behind it. Whether it's YP or it's the same in the Innovation Bay founder group. I mean, that is the sort of core to what we do. So share that journey with your peers because your wife or husband or partner at home does not get it. Your kids don't get it. Your investors don't get it. Your board members don't get it. Your staff certainly don't get it. So in some ways you've got to be a chameleon. And it's like, if your staff says, how's it going? You know, you don't want to go, oh my God, we're fucked. And we're about to run out of cash. You know, that's probably the truth in many cases.

24:10I did do that once. It didn't go down well. No, it doesn't. So you've got to have this chameleon-like approach to life where you're bottling all up for the people that need to hear the good news. But the reality is every single person, as well as being tough to run a business, it's also tough being a human. you know so like hey we've all got issues 100 % of humans out there have issues that you got to deal with and being able to find a group that you can and it's not that it's your you know therapy group and you're going to go in every time and you know say that everyone hates you and you start crying I mean it's like that will occasionally happen and that's hard because to get to that vulnerability is incredibly difficult because most people especially founders you know they're alpha types They don't want to admit that there's challenges or problems.

24:57But if you can find a group of peers who are not competitive, won't judge you, they have the same issues. And to build that vulnerability, you need process and structure. So when people first see the forum world, it's like, oh, my God, this is like being back at school. Why do I need a three-hour training session to understand what this means? And why do I need to give my update in a four-minute interval? or, you know, and there's a few different things that you have to go through, but it works. I mean, this has been honed over 70 years. It's not unique to YPO or Innovation Bay or EO or anyone like there is a standard process.

25:36I mean, there's a book, Forum, The Secret Advantage. I can't remember, you'll know the author's name. Anyway, he's a great guy, but he wrote the book. There is a playbook for how this can work. And it's not just, again, it's not just within that forum. And the forum structure is, you know, six to 10 people normally, uh, no less, no more. This seems to be the right number. And that happens to be the size of a platoon or the size of a team and most organizations. So it's a kind of human number. Um, and it's one that works. And I love that you said there's no judgment because the other thing that I love about it, there's no advice giving, at least that's how I've been facilitated.

26:13I don't know about you. When someone says you need to do this. You should do this. It's like feathers, nails on a chalkboard. And what I love about the concept is people learning to get curious and asking questions and then sharing their stories where they fucked up, where it went well. So it's not saying do this, do that. Cause if you give advice like that and it does, it goes sideways, you're going to have some resentment. Now you've been in peer in your forums 15 years. So it's not like a one and done magic. And thank you also for sharing the structure and the norms can be like, what is this?

26:49It does work. It takes patience. It takes time and it's peers. It's instead of having an executive coach, but talk about any, any moments that were without sharing any confidence, very confidential, but moments that really helped you go from, you know, change behavior or mindset. I mean, I'll maybe talk about when I came out of my startup. I mean, that was a tough journey. I mean, it was partly voluntary, partly pushed. And it was a tough moment for me. It's like, this is my business and I'm not sure that I want to go. What am I going to do next? You know, these are pretty major decisions. After 12 years in an organization, it's pretty tough to realize that it's maybe time to move on.

27:31And that's one of the, you know, the good things about founders is you want them tenacious and sticky. The bad things about founders is they are tenacious and sticky. And I probably was being too tenacious and sticky, wanted to hang around. And my forum really helped me think through that. It's like, you know, there is a world beyond what you've been doing for 12 years. And ultimately, it was the best decision for me. I mean, I ended up, you know, I got a job running the AWS startup team and it probably saved my marriage. because, you know, like being a sticky, tenacious CEO, director, founder, you know, it's just tough, you know, and it was not easy in the home life.

28:08I think that's the reality. So it was just good all around, but I probably wouldn't have got to that answer without my forum. I'm sure you're not alone. There's many more, many founders that have been. I think that's the other important part about it too because often there's this sense of isolation in the path that you're on and it's the realisation that yes, you are unique but it's not unique. The things that you experience, there are others going through the same experience and you talked about the size of platoon before. It's only people who've been through that experience who can share that understanding with people.

28:50no one outside of any challenging circumstance can quite wrap their head around what has actually happened yeah so that's why those support groups are so important yeah 100 and so we were talking about that's a great community and the case the the case of the power of community and the case for ai and what that's doing good bad and ugly to community you're talking about ai yeah i mean ai is it's gone from zero to ubiquitous in no time. I mean, what are we, three years in since OpenAI launched ChatGBT? And it was quirky at the time. It's like, oh, you know, tell me, you know, Henry VIII's speech at Agincourt like Donald Trump would.

29:35I mean, and it would come up with something that was plausible. It's like, ha-ha, that was great. But now it's like, go and vibe code me, you know, something that will cook my dinner. I mean, it's extraordinary where it's got to. Write my pitch so that I can get$100 ,000 out of Gilex. I've had to do my website. Yeah, there is a lot of AI slope now that's out there. But I think anyone that's listening to this is using it. Anyone that's listening to this is probably feeling more productive. Anyone that's listening to this has got their, you know, ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude Prompt open in front of them most of the time.

30:12But it's exhausting. I mean, that's the reality. it doesn't you're not going to work less you're just going to work more in many ways like not more hours but just more productive so your brain is multitasking more than it ever has you know i was you know you can have three prompts going at the same time and you know i'll sometimes forget about one of the prompts i put in this oh shit what do i do with that one you know so you're trying to run all these things in parallel uh and you get a lot more done uh But it is exhausting. And I think people are getting fatigue with it. It's like if you spend too long in the matrix with your AI friends, then, you know, what are we becoming?

30:51You know, so again, this brings back that point about community. I think in a world of ubiquitous AI, community and the human touch is critical. In fact, I'll just give you one case study. You know, I do a lot of training. I've always loved sport. I've always been a sports person. So anyway, like Claude has been my coach for the last year or so. And it's been great because it treated me like a 54 and now 55 year old, you know, so you need more recovery. You're not going as intensely, etc. So that was really good. But it was just it was relentlessly positive and optimistic. And aren't you clever?

31:29And aren't you great? And that was a great outcome. And then I was just getting sick of it. It's like, you do not know what it's like to suffer. You don't know where it's like to stand the start line and be nervous or be scared of fucking up. I mean, it's those things are real. And so maybe, you know, again, this is about the performance piece that odd was probably getting me 95, 97 percent of the potential maximum performance. But if you want 100 percent, I've gone back to human. So I found this guy, Bobby, he's awesome. He's human. You know, he gives me shit. You know, have a laugh with me. And that just feels better.

32:05and I actually enjoy doing the program more because you feel more accountable because I don't want Bobby to be upset with me, whereas Claude getting upset with you or whatever. Yeah, and sharing that stuff. I'm scared. I feel like I fucked up. And saying those things out loud and someone else saying, oh my God, yes, and sharing a story with you, I know that lowers my anxiety significantly. And for anyone who watches sport and has been in one of those quarters or halves where the team who you know have the talent and the ability to do it, and suddenly can't and then the coach comes along and tears them a new one during the break you don't get the ai to do this no you would not uh so there's a lot to that and look i think and again comes back to the whole community piece i think that human touch and human connection is becoming more important than it's ever been you know and we're seeing this with innovation bay like people are kind of leaning in a bit more than they were you know that ubiquitous AI and an exhaustion with it you know everyone's got access to it like the the the playing field is level in many ways because if you if you're not using AI properly then you're you're nothing so again it's what is the differentiator uh it takes you back to first principles like what's going to get you from 95 to 100 percent of being that great founder and I think it's your peer group and your humans that are around you and building doing the tough stuff you know as a founder what do you need to do as a tech founder i mean there's there's three things that we talk about um the first one is you've got to hire great people and that is incredibly difficult you know because someone's got to leave their job because you're not going to hire someone who's unemployed because they're going to be bad potentially unless they're extraordinary but mostly you're getting them out of probably a cushy job that's really tough second thing you've got to convince a customer to give you money for your product that's incredibly difficult because there's competition and you've got to get in front of them.

33:58You've got to convince them. Or I didn't know I needed this thing for my business anyway. Yeah. So you've got to convince them of that. And again, both of those are highly human endeavors. And the third one, another human endeavor, and it's not, everyone doesn't have to do this one, but it's raise money or pull money down from a source. And that's really tough too. And in all three cases, you need to be a good human and have human skills for that. And you can't do that using AI. And have you seen that with the community and the humans with innovation Bay and the forums that you have in there? Have you seen that be impactful and change?

34:34Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, yeah, we have again, coming up with specific examples is hard because a lot of the forum stuff is confidential and I'm not in the meetings. I know what it's like. And when you come across a founder, it's like, oh my God, you know, there is, outcome X happened because of discussion Y. And that would not have happened without you guys. You know, and that, look, Innovation Bay is not about me buying a bigger house in the eastern suburbs. It's about having impact and legacy. You know, look, it should be a good business. I mean, it's, yeah, it's a membership organization and it should be a good business.

35:14But ultimately, we want to have those impact that direct and genuine impact on the founders and investors that we go in the group so i heard a story yesterday i don't know if this is a one-off but it was a 21 year old student talking to someone else in a car journey and they were like i don't like using it this is a 21 year old i don't like using ai because it's making me lazy i want to do the work myself and i'm like that's interesting and then i was reflecting you know this person was mid-50s as well and like the two of us were like i don't feel guilty because i've done that i mean i've spent my entire career writing documents and emails and doing the hard yards and spreadsheets from scratch and all that stuff that is easy now you know so i actually feel good that i've got some support and help to do that because i look at the outcome and go i could have done that and i genuinely could have it's the thing if someone pulls the plug out of the powerpoint yeah you'll still be able to do it like being at a shopping at being a checkout and going oh you gave me a 50 dollar note what do i do well we're the last the last analog only generation yes we because we grew up in an analog only world so we have that muscle yeah i remember we're before mobiles correct i mean that's a long time ago before the internet wow internet um we were talking about uh the investment landscape and you had mentioned something earlier before we got on there about angels versus vcs and what that looks like yeah and i'll maybe you know overlay the where we are in the investment cycle uh but i think as an overall statement is still wintry or winter uh you know 2021 was summer and you know everyone had money and they're locked up at home and the money had no value and they were bored so they're throwing it around like uh into startups and venture funds that got pretty tough come 22 23 i mean russia invaded ukraine inflation went up and there was a whole bunch of headwinds that came in um where we're at now is it feels like there's some warm air blowing over our face despite you know against headwinds tailwinds the headwinds are real uh you've got a tough economy You've got tax laws coming in that shouldn't be coming in.

37:27You've got war in the Middle East, energy uncertainty. Trump's still in the White House causing havoc with some of the world's things. Again, I don't want to get too political here, but there are headwinds. But the tailwind is kind of the whole AI. It's the investment in the infrastructure. It's the productivity that I think we're all positive about. And the tailwinds are outweighing the headwinds. So that's the general statement. My observation on angels versus VCs, like VCs have to deploy. They raise a fund. They've got a fixed time horizon for that. It's normally a closed-end fund, so call it 10 years, but might get an extension to 12 or 14.

38:07You have to get that money out in the first four or five years because otherwise you don't have enough time to do it. So you have to invest almost regardless of the cycle. Angels don't. I mean, if you've got a million bucks burning a hole in your pocket, then put it in a Macquarie high-interest account and your million bucks, you'll get 50 grand a year of income. It's safe and you can pull it out straight away. That's a pretty good outcome. So if there's a better opportunity, i.e. startups that they'll invest in, they'll do that. But if there's not, they won't. So, and again, I'll use some data from Innovation Bay.

38:44If you go back to 2024 in our angel investor group, and our angel investors, high net worths, mostly exited founders, That's the customer profile we've got. So these are smart people from the ecosystem. They care. They're passionate. They've got connections. They've got money. I mean, that's kind of what you want. 2024, I think they did one deal that we saw come through the Innovation Bay platform. 2025, last year, they did seven deals in total, including two investments in funds. And again, it's up to the individuals how they do it. We're not investing as a collective. So these are individual decisions.

39:19This year, they've done seven deals already. So it's the angels are putting the money to work. And I think that's a much better barometer of the climate than looking at just VC deployment. Is it a case of the ideas? Did we go through a flat period with ideas? Or I get the capital in a safe bank account where you have liquidity every month when Macquarie drops the next interest payment in. But it felt like for a while, certainly with politicians running around citing the same three companies over and over and over again as an example of Australian innovation, that we weren't quite, we started to rest on our laurels for a little bit.

40:03Yeah, it's a good question and I don't know the answer. I don't think it's just about ideas. Ideas are always bubbling up. It's about the ability to execute the ideas in a unique or novel way with a talented founder that will do it. And again, there's so many factors will go into this. In some ways, when the market is crappy, like it was in 23, 24, the best founders are not going to go out and start trying to raise money for the company. They might be working on it on the side, but I think they know this is not the time to be going out and trying to raise because it's just too hard. Now, there are still deals getting done then.

40:38So the best companies will still raise money, whatever the climate. So I think the reality is the best founders are now coming out. some of the uncertainty as to, you know, what does AI mean? And am I going to have my company destroyed by a move by a major or another startup? I mean, that uncertainty is still there, but it's been reduced. And look, it's real, that whole sasspocalypse. I don't like that expression, but, you know, it's like, I can vibe code Atlassian tomorrow. It's like, well, yeah, maybe, but it's, you know, McCrory's not going to strip out Atlassian and Salesforce and use your vibe-coded crap.

41:12So there is... Going back to one of your original points, you've still got to get a customer to buy it. Yes, correct. Yeah. And, you know, the InfoSec has got to sign off on that. And InfoSec at Macquarie or any of the other major corporates is not trivial. So your vibe-coded stuff will not pass their thing. So the point here is that the great founders trying to build a great business, they feel like now is a much better time because they can come out, some of that AI uncertainty is gone. I think they can articulate their unique selling point and where their moat is. I mean, we talk about moat in the venture investment world a lot.

41:53It's like, what is your unfair advantage? What is to protect you from someone else coming along and doing it? Now, in the old days, even the old days, like four years ago, it used to be, all right, can you build this? I mean, it's like the engineering moats was genuine. It's like, this is really hard to build. I mean, if you look at, you know, the way Atlassian or Canva, whoever built their product, it was like there was thousands of engineer hours had gone into that. Now that moat has been reduced. Like software genuinely is better, faster, cheaper than it's ever been to do. So what are the other moats?

42:26It's like, you know, what is your knowledge of this market that you're in? What is your data source that no one else has got access to? what is you and your team's capability in this market? You know, it could be in critical rail infrastructure or airports or, you know, boring has value now. And not in a way that it didn't, but I think people are now realizing that. So niche and boring and data and critical infrastructure and government contracts, I mean, those are all real things that maybe weren't - Picks and shovels rather than nugget discovery. Yeah, correct. So they're more interesting now than they used to be.

43:03and AI in itself at this point in time, whilst NVIDIA is doing the chips and everything else, the whole data center thing is just an infrastructure play. It's not the great tech innovation. We are building the equivalent of an ideas dam that everything can be stored in. We just had venture down under, so we had 180 VCs for our venture capital conference, three days, two nights, a lot of fun, a lot of learnings. and that there was a very positive and optimistic feeling from the group you know like this is the best time ever to be a venture investor because we don't know what's coming but we know it's coming and those ideas will need money uh those founders are going to need support and help and their ability to innovate pivot adapt quickly is unlike anything we've seen before because you get more swings at bat i mean if you go back when i was running viacorp and you know we used to buy our own servers i mean it was how quaint was that i mean like again it sounds kind of niche but we would literally go on dell.com and order up 200 grand of servers and you'd wait a month and they might turn up and then your tech guy would configure them uh in the office and it sounds like a 747 going off when you turn these things on in the office but you got to patch them and put the software in and then literally i would put them in the back of my crappy Subaru and drive to the data center and plug them in.

44:27Now that means it was a one, one off, kind of a one way door all in bed, because if what you were doing with those servers didn't work, you didn't have many other chances to, to go again. Now cloud changed that, you know, you had access to infinite computing power. You could do it quickly. It was at your fingertips. You only paid for it when you used it. I mean, that was extraordinary. So that again, gave you more swings, you know more swings at base or bat sorry i'm glad the americans here to give me the the right expression uh but you go forward now you've also got the software layer um you know so what i talked about was the hardcore infrastructure layer than the cloud layer now you're talking about the software layer you can have more swings at bat with software like you never had in 2031 what does that look like we're here now we're in 2031 down the track venture down under has just had another cracking soiree maybe this is uh a personal bias i mean we as investors andrew and i have always loved deep tech um now we actually and again going back to the boring is good uh we believe that deep tech has got more value than it ever had uh and that is the the innovation the core innovation is to do with hardware or some physical property it doesn't I mean, yeah, I mean, there are other examples of deep tech that don't involve that.

45:48But generally speaking, hardware or something physical, because you can't scale a hardware or physical business without great software. So what you're going to find is that the most amazing hardware innovations, whether it's a microfilm catalyst or a quantum computer or microprocessor, all that stuff is great. but if you superpower that with incredible software that you can build without the most amazing software team you know you can get a platoon of software engineers that can vibe code you know again vibe code is the wrong word but you can engineer something quickly you know we've got in our portfolio great case study of that i mean gelomics is uh you know they build a 3d substrate um you know it's like a 3d petri dish so you can change the texture of the substrate that you're experimenting on from bone tissue to brain tissue stops animal testing is faster it's better when that's backed up with incredible software and it's not that they weren't good founders they were amazing and you know their their innovation was in the the hardware they backed that up with a six-month development of this incredible software tool that allowed experimenters to put their protocol in link it to their machine uh so you could type in the protocol It would tell you exactly what to experiment with.

47:07And it just kind of unlocked their go-to-market. And I think that, I mean, that's a micro example, but that is going to be much more true across all of the hardcore tech innovations. So I think that's what we're going to see. I'm going to get personal for a second. What's the startup investment pillow talk like with the founder of Geolix Ventures? Do you guys spend a lot of time sort of kicking things backwards and forwards and working on thesis and uh look we yeah people talk about work-life balance i mean it is work-life harmony uh and it you know like 99 of the time is harmonious uh you know you the woman that you love and you want to spend your rest of your life with uh who's also happens to be your work partner and boss is a tough uh tough environment sometimes but look genuinely we have the thing that makes it good for us is complementary skills i mean like i love people and fundraising and you know getting in front of portfolio and doing all that stuff and she has great strategy and you know the uh you know picking founders and just that that i guess way of working like the culture uh so you know and those are somewhat different um skill sets so we do spend a lot of time talking about uh gilix and what we're doing and what's next um but we also spend a bit time you know play a bit golf together and we uh we'll watch the tv together and you know what are you watching at the moment yeah i like that silo yeah have you seen that like the apple tv is like the dystopian future post post nuclear i mean it turns out that's that's the the punch line to it and all these people live in these you know mile deep silos underground uh and it's 200 years in and the thing i find funniest about this is that you know who the most powerful person in the whole ecosystem is because they have the keys to the kingdom it's not you know they built this whole structure and power system so you've got the mayor you've got the uh the head of the justice department and all these other people the number one person in is the head of it so that person is the most powerful person in the silo.

49:26So there you go. Tech wins. And do you swap book ideas? Are you reading anything at the moment? Yeah, I am. I'm reading, you know, I listen generally. It's a book by David Deutsch called The Path to Infinity, which is kind of a physics. It's quite hardcore, especially when you're trying to cycle and concentrate on something else. Yeah. Yeah. When they're talking about the multi-universe theory. And I mean, I love that stuff. And it's super interesting. He did another book called The Fabric of Reality that is super. I've got to listen to it again because a lot of it went over my head, especially at 1.8 times speed.

50:04What would you recommend to founders who have not yet found community or peer coaching? What would you say to them to get curious and maybe dip their toe in? Innovationbay.com. Yeah, you go. Yeah, that's a bit self-serving. but genuinely find, look, get out, like meet people. I mean, you want to find your tribe and that can be hard, you know, especially if you're, you know, tech people tend to be a bit more insular and like, you know, dealing with the AI and WhatsApp and Slack interface rather than human face, but you know, get out your comfort zone. Have a conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Great. I think that's, that's critical.

50:45You know, if, if my salespeople used to be asked me, And it's just like, should I go to this event? I'm like, I don't know. I guarantee if you don't go, nothing happens. That is excellent advice, which goes back to that original point around sales and sales are hard. So I will ask you for advice in terms of engaging with customers. Because again, it goes back to founders can often be very focused on the product, believing that this is what people need. and the important part is that conversation with the end user. Is it what they need and want and will they pay for it? Yeah, again, I don't know.

51:25I mean, the best sales advice is just be genuine, be passionate. You've got to believe in what you're selling if you're trying to do that. I mean, some salespeople might be able to do it without that, but you need to believe in it. That's why founders make such good salespeople. If a founder can't sell the product, even if they're not a salesperson, I guarantee a salesperson can. you know so you've just got to care deeply about what you're trying to solve so when you're in front of your customer you should be thinking if you don't buy this you're an idiot so it's kind of like and you want to just be you wouldn't say that obviously I don't know whether you'd get many sales with that but you know you might get one or two but just exude that passion for what you're trying to do and why your product is the one that's going to do it I often like to finish with what brings you joy and we will go there.

52:11But one thing given you brought up the moon, what is on the Ian Gardner dream list? Yeah, I'll double down on the moon. I mean, I've been a space nerd, I think, all my life. I mean, I never really had the, I want to be an astronaut and do nothing else. But, you know, I just love what, I mean, I don't love everything that Elon Musk does, but what he's done with the space industry is extraordinary. You know, he has pushed the boundaries in so many ways and just gone away from that. super expensive linear end-to-end you know like pork barrel filled in different congressional districts blah blah i mean that was not a way to innovate in the space industry and you know the way that you know he bet everything on spacex and that final launch if it hadn't gone off then there would be no spacex right now you know so you know where he's going with that starship concept and this 100 reusability and you know they're talking about getting millions of tons of mass to orbit within three or four years and you're like, oh my God, that is such a game changer.

53:11At a fraction of the cost. Fraction of the cost, you know, because it's fully reusable. I mean, in the old days, it was like, you know, taking the world's most expensive plane and then using it to deliver one person to one place and then throwing it in the bin. You mean you basically chucked in the ocean. It's not a great use of anything. You know, let's reuse it. That's a good idea. So, and that, I think the extension of that will be a moon base. I mean, that's probably the next thing. I think NASA will do that. and then space tourism will open up. You know, Mars is a thing, but I don't know whether I'd want to go to Mars.

53:42It's just, it's a long way. It's, you know, you're going to get radiated to death. I mean, it's just, there's a lot of downsides with going to Mars. But, you know, a week turnaround trip to the moon, you know, I just love to get off the spaceship, walk around on the surface and look at the Earth. I mean, it's the ultimate adventure, isn't it? Yep, absolutely. So, Joey. What would I pick? I've always loved exercise and kind of, you know, maybe it's the masochistic side of me, but you know, I was a swimmer as a kid and then I went to uni and did rowing and then I was a cyclist. So I specialize in, I guess, straightening my leg and hurting, you know, that was the rowing and cycling part of it.

54:23And I still love that exercise piece. I mean, I had a heart issue that I dealt with probably six years ago, you know, just some electrical stuff that they fixed and I felt like I got a bit of a new lease of life so i've taken up this high rocks sport where you sort of run a kilometer and then you do a workout and you do it eight times in a row so it's like an hour and a bit of cardio hell and it turns out you know if there is a graph of participation against age group 55 plus age group there's not that many people doing it there's some good people in there but i'm now in this new age group so i've got a chance to do well i mean i'd love to qualify and go to the world champs and try and win the masters game masters game well yeah i mean high rocks is amazing completely separate but it's an amazing business too and they'll get two and a half million people through the doors this year paying oh my gosh 200 bucks each like globally there's 100 plus cities that do this thing uh so there's a bit of a community there you know going back to that point uh and i just i love the focus i love the purpose i love the training um yeah so that does give me joy and it makes me feel healthy and good.

55:32You know, I get it done in the morning first thing and I sleep well. Uh, you know, I eat well cause you can't, I mean, you've got to eat a fair bit when you're doing that much training. So yeah, anyway, I just, that brings me joy. And you've got a whole bunch of other people who can only understand the pain you've gone through. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it is sort of, yeah, it's a young person's thing. So, you know, you just get a bunch of these 30 year olds starting around with a shirt off and then you get a few old crazy guys like me. And it's been great to have you on Startup360. Oh, thank you.

56:05Yeah, yeah. Thanks so much for sharing your stories. I much prefer asking the questions. I didn't get to ask many. Well, get us on your podcast. Yeah, okay. We can flip the script on that one. But that was great fun. I enjoyed that. Innovationbay.com is the place. And geobstallvc. Don't forget that one. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes, keep sending the handwritten. I think we should go back to handwritten pitch decks. Agreed. So you can do it in my tablets or longhand. Or just do something that is not like a Claude produced. Dot point. AI slot. Spreadsheet and, you know, pitch deck. Yeah. No more AI slot, please.

56:43All right. Well, that's it for this week. Any plans for the weekend? I'm still looking for housing. Cleaning up, decluttering, and building my Trell LM. If anyone would like a sparkling housemate, get in touch. She's very well behaved, cleans up after herself. And Hershey has me very well trained. And you get to pat a wonderful dog along the way. As this goes to where, I am down in Melbourne at Intersect, helping host that. I've been doing that for I think about five, six years now. It's always a great fintech gathering. I'm sure Dom Pym will lead a pub choir and Rihanna and everyone will have a great time.

57:24We've got the CEO of Zero coming along. The politicians turn up. That will be interesting because there seems to be a lot more engagement. There must be some elections coming up because everyone suddenly every three or four years gets very curious about coming to events like this. So I know it's always a great time and FinTech Australia puts on a great shindig. So I'll enjoy that. and then I'm in Canberra for a 50th birthday party. I know some young people. Oh, wow. That is young. So, yes, happy birthday to Sherelle. Fabulous economist. I'll be enjoying that. And then Father's Day on Sunday. So hopefully my children will remember and I'll give my dad a call.

58:04And that's that. And then we'll do it all again next Friday. So thanks for joining us on Startup 360. This is a Smart Co Media production. this week produced by Alex Harrod and edited by Matt Jackson. Thanks to Ella, to James, and of course, to Deel for their support. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify. If you want to watch YouTube, it's all there. And of course, you'll see the clips all over socials. Go and have a look at the full conversation. And don't forget to read startupdaily.net absolutely free. All the ANZ tech news, a little bit of the bigger stuff as well. I'm having fun covering that.

58:39and oh my gosh when this goes out next week I've just realized it will be the winners of the Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards we're announcing them next Thursday night I think our tickets are all sold out so we've got a couple hundred people coming along with Allegra giving our keynote so it's going to be a great night I'm glad I'm recording it before because whilst I'm a very good boy whilst on stage, I try and do a little bit of catch up on the butt at the end of the show. So Friday morning is not necessarily my best day of the year, but I'm sure it'll be a great night. So congratulations to all the winners.

59:20You will be able to read about them on startupdaily.net next week. Next Friday morning. Next Friday morning. All right. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next Friday. Bye for now. Bye for now.