How to build a startup without losing yourself

0:00Mark Zmarzly: Founders, I know what's on your mind at stupid o 'clock. After failed attempts at counting funding rounds and doom scrolling, you've finally settled on something that will surely put you to sleep. Payroll and compliance. Don't let the boring stuff slow down your startup growth. Global HR and payroll platform DEAL, that's D-E-E-L, can handle all the complicated stuff around international payroll, compliance, visas and onboarding, so you can stay focused on building. Visit deal.com slash 360 to learn more today.

0:34Renate Crollini: I've actually realised lately that everybody is building the plane as if they're flying, so I'm not sure if that's comforting or terrifying, like who's actually flying this thing.

0:48Mark Zmarzly: Hello and welcome. Bujigemawara here from the Gadigal lands in Sydney. I'm Simon Thompson, editor of StartupDaily.net, and it's time for Startup360. Yay! But I'm here on my own and today will be a special episode. We're going to look back through some of the conversations we've had in 2026 for our 76th episode and we're going to figure out a couple of key things that founders might want to know. Julie's not here this week, of course she is busy packing, ready to move to the inner west, so you've got just me. I've been at Spark Festival this week. I hope you have been too. It's been a great adventure.

1:28Mark Zmarzly: And I will be there on Friday afternoon for the closing, we'll be ending it, of course. This morning, everyone gathered at Parliament House for the Parliamentary Friends of Technology, a great event. And I'll be talking tomorrow, of course, yesterday, by the time you see this, with Julie Dowling about pitching to the media. But 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 to them. Now, as you know, this show is all about founder fun more than founder mode. And we talk about joy, we talk about flirting, we talk about a whole bunch of things.

2:07But this week, I thought I would pick the brains of some of our previous guests

2:12Mark Zmarzly: to see if things all started to form a pattern and made sense. So our guests today are Marks Marsley, Renate Crillini, Ed Stenning and Emma Early who've all been on recent episodes of Startup360. Join us for the mistakes, the moments of doubt, the people in your corner and the reminds of what we're all doing it for. What makes you take the leap into building a business and what keeps you going on when it gets difficult? Well, they're the things we're going to talk about today. But before we get there, I do want to do a little bit of the deal spiel, the big news of the week. And wow, wow, wow, Heidi Health.

2:53Mark Zmarzly: If it couldn't have been any bigger than winning the Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards Scale-Up of the Year and AI Game Changer, well, they went Hold My Beer this week with$140 million Series C round led by Blackbird, as well as another$235 million in growth financing from General Caseless Customer Value Fund. So that is$475 million in total. Now, it's a little bit like a debt facility, that one, and it's being used for customer acquisition. Of course, the Series C is part of their broader global build-out. Most interesting thing about that is Australia has its newest and fourth unicorn of 2026.

3:33Mark Zmarzly: Heidi is now valued at$1.26 billion Australian dollars. and the company says its revenue has now hit 50 million ARR US up from US 1 million two years ago. Of course, it did do an acquisition of a UK AI company earlier this year, but it really is powering on. So congratulations there. There's been so much activity this week when it comes to funding. Also, HGO Robotics has raised 37 million, led by Beaton's own venture partners, with$10 million also from the National Reconstruction Fund. It's a sovereign thing. And, of course, HEO puts cameras on satellites to inspect them and other space debris and find out what's going on.

4:18Mark Zmarzly: The funding will expand its coverage into geostationary orbit and HEO expects its Australian workforce to grow from 36 to 85 by 2028. Its customs include the Australian, American and Japanese governments. And then, of course, well, if you've got any loose change down the back of the couch, you really need to have a look at the Firmus IPO. Now, Reuters reported that the institutional offer is scheduled to open on October 6 with the ASX listing planned for October 2022. If completed, it will be the second largest IPO ever after Telstra in 1997. You may have heard of that company. But to put a little bit of perspective, as I did when I wrote about it for Startup Daily this week.

5:02Mark Zmarzly: At a$50 billion Australian valuation, Firmus is bigger than Woolworths. At this stage, it only has two of a proposed seven data centres up and running. It has deals left, right and centre with Meta, Nvidia and so many others. It is looking to raise $7 billion in this float. Now, this is a company that 12 months ago, last September 2025, was valued at just over$1 billion. We've seen some pretty crazy valuation rises over the last 12 months as everyone goes all in on AI, but this one is out of the park. We'll be interested to see how this one plays out because, of course, they tried a little bit earlier this year.

5:47Mark Zmarzly: The appetite wasn't there. It now seems like everyone is shut up and take my money. So we'll know in a couple of weeks what is going on. I know the founders of the business, which is now headquartered in Singapore, but based in Australia, have been talking to institutional investors this week in Sydney and Melbourne in the hope that they will come on board. We'll see what happens. Which brings us to the Reserve Bank Governor, Michelle Bullock, and with a fairly significant qualification to the excitement. She says there are still a few signs of AI lifting the economy productive capacity while the investment boom is adding demand to the economy struggling with inflation.

6:27Mark Zmarzly: So what they're saying is, yeah, there could be some gains that are good for us. But at the same time, all this bubble basically is adding to Australia's inflation problem. Of course, the US is seeing it as well. And the Fed over there raised interest rates last week. Everyone is widely now expecting that Australia will raise interest rates when the RBA meets again next week. And the thing is that the productivity gains may come later. The spending is happening now. Bullock also says central banks are watching for the risk of the AI investment bubble while stopping short of declaring that we're in one.

7:03Mark Zmarzly: So, you know, a little bit on the fence, that usual Mandarin aspect that the RBA brings to it. For founders selling productivity improvements, the pressure to demonstrate results is going to increase along the way, and that will be the challenge. Of course, the intergenerational report also came out. That's a 40-year look down the track into the impact on the Australian economy. Now, again, Treasury and Jim Chalmers said that AI will have a significant impact over the next four decades, but there are other challenges going on as well. Revenue is an issue, declining population. If we're going to keep shutting down immigration and our birth rates drop, there will be a lot of challenges.

7:46Mark Zmarzly: And the population is also aging, which means there will be a greater demand on things like healthcare more broadly. So a lot of challenges there. But in staying with the AI theme, meanwhile, OpenAI and Anthropic, the two US giants with frontier models, are pushing Australia to reconsider consider copyright restrictions on AI training. It's a bit like the kids in the back of the car nagging you to stop at McDonald's. You say no the first time, they ask again, you say no the second time. They're asking again. In a parliamentary submission, they're seeking changes that would allow greater use of creative material, arguing investment and protection for creators would be part of the arrangement.

8:25Mark Zmarzly: Authors and publishers remain concerned about their work being used without consent and payment. This has been a big issue. Of course, there have been major legal cases in the US over it and some settlements along the way. There's a parliamentary committee currently looking into this. There's also one that's been in Sydney this week looking at AI data centres in the suburbs and people are pushing back pretty hard on them and saying no. But the committee is going to report on this issue in November and we'll see how that plays out because I know there's a lot of pressure in the arts community on the government to hold the ground on copyright.

8:59Mark Zmarzly: We'll see how that one plays out. but that's it for now I think we'll take a quick break and when we come back sit back enjoy Emma, Mark, Renata and Ed as they take us through startup life we'll be right back. Welcome back to Startup360 well here is our special compilation of advice from four great people who've been on Startup360 recently we're going to kick off with Mark Zamasli and the 2am Maccas test after that you're going to hear from Renata about taking the leap and knowing when to stop. We'll then go on to Ed Stenning and when customers don't understand your brilliant idea. Of course, Ed is one half of Posca, the OG hydration drink from ancient Rome.

9:48Mark Zmarzly: And then finally, we'll come to Emma with a startup ending AI hype and building differently. Hope you enjoy the show. I'll see you at the end.

9:57Renate Crollini: 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 deal takes care of onboarding hr it eor benefits and compliance so your team can grow without borders it's why more than 37 000 and fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast. Visit deal.com slash 360. That's D-E-E-L dot com slash 360.

10:36Renate Crollini: So the idea was I was falling in love with how people make financial decisions because mostly people make poor financial decisions and that's how banks make a lot of money. So I really started falling in love with the industry because I was an English major. I didn't have one business class until I was 36. My dad was a stockbroker, but didn't talk to us about finances at all. So, and it's very like, you start talking to people about like, you know, how were you raised? What was money like? And good Lord, you can go deep early because people's parents gave them lessons. And usually to the extremes of like great examples or horrible examples.

11:06Renate Crollini: And then people take those, what they will, and either go the other end of the spectrum, if their parents were like, like super like loose with money and there was never enough, maybe now they're so like i guess contractionary around money and it's like a scarcity mentality so so that to me i was just in love with that concept and then the people around finance and then as an entrepreneurship like a journey you find people that are advisors and mentors and they're just fascinating so i just really like like that article was a way to like a little bit of a love letter to being a founder or to anybody in any career ultimately i love how you connect the problems like that's what i always talk to when i'm talking to founders fall in love with the problem and how the banking problem, but you also saw the end human at the end of it.

11:47Renate Crollini: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's like the biggest mistake I see founders make. I'm like, they're telling me about their problem space. I'm like, Oh, that's very interesting. Are you so in love with this that you're going to spend 10 years doing this? Like when it's really hard. And I used to joke, I said, when you're alone in the basement of, I used to say it was Hardee's in America, but it'd be like, you know, uh, Macers here, right? When you're alone, it's 2 AM and you're in the basement of mcdonald's working alone on this problem do you care enough about it to keep going because that's where you're going to be at the darkest places period like literally the basement of mcdonald's is usually probably a place in your soul where you're like what have i done what have i effing done it's been four years and like now we're back out of money and whatever that's what my journey was and three times i was in the dark so i can't even afford a mcafi meal yeah exactly exactly you can't even supersize it mate i mean what the heck um but when it's that dark and lonely, you have to care so much about the problem that you'll be able to persevere through it.

12:42Renate Crollini: And that's what I see a lot of founders when they're talking about something around like, you know, logistics, supply chain and whatever. I'm like, does this really matter to you? And the best way they say, well, yes, because my mom and dad were in this thing or my mom and dad were importers and I came here from China as an immigrant. Like, then yes, that is a great problem for you to solve. Please keep going. But sometimes when they say, you know, I'm not really that passionate about it. And I'm like, you're only a year in. Now's a great chance to find the problem you do care about.

13:06Mark Zmarzly: So the old, I just looked around and I thought, well, it looks like there's a good margin in that. And I could be a millionaire in sort of three years. Well, it wasn't my journey

13:14Renate Crollini: and you can make money doing that. If you can find something, solve it, flip it, et cetera.

13:18Mark Zmarzly: I suppose it's the primary motivator I'm getting to.

13:19Renate Crollini: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and I think I find, you know, are you in love with the destination or the journey? So the destination, if it's just money, I know many entrepreneurs who've done that and actually been successful at doing that. And that's fine, but it's very, it's even more rare than just building a company. I'd say that that happens. So if you're on this journey and like my journey was seven years and I don't know if I could ever do my own startup again as a founder, I'm joined now with a young startup and I love it because I'm not the founder. I didn't have to struggle through that product market fit.

13:47Renate Crollini: They have it now and I'm just going to be able to pour gasoline on that for them. But yeah, it can be very hard and lonely. So you've got to, you've got to fall in love with the problem. Tell me, does everyone have one startup in them? No, I wouldn't say so. at all because no because i i mean there's a fact my my inbox on linkedin is filled with people who want to talk to me about the idea they have and it's the same people that'll be there seven years later you know talking about the idea and stuff so no they those people shouldn't do it um i believe that uh i guess it's maybe that's a nature nurture thing but there is like a gallop strength finder test they used to call it like the entrepreneurial strengths finder test now i took it in retrospect when i was already an entrepreneur but i was like you know top whatever point five percent of all entrepreneurs in this thing.

14:29Renate Crollini: And, and they had done it. And that to me was like validation that, you know, Hey, I'm a founder. Um, many people would take that test and not get whatever. I don't think that you have to be blessed with, with a certain DNA to be a founder. But if you talk to me to a random person out in America or here in Australia and corporate world, most of them should not be entrepreneurs. Well, I like what you're saying. Fall off the problem. It's a human thing. And while I was reading your startup weekend is over now, what was that? Seven years ago, things have changed now with the access of all the vibe coding and the barriers are a lot lower.

14:59Renate Crollini: Do you think that might change the entrepreneurial journey or mindset of people going? Absolutely. Well, even when I started at AWS, like, you know, like when I, when I was like an entrepreneur, it was 2012, like the, the barrier to entry on like knowing how to even set up your AWS environment, your console and stuff was so complex. And now you can just, like you said, vibe code, anything with lovable oversell, whatever you want to do, whatever tool you have, and you can spend something up. Um, so I think the, the barrier to entry from the cost and like, I guess know-how is so much lower. What I still find is still a challenge is how do you get to revenue right away?

15:33Renate Crollini: Because some people still build, now that you can build a product doesn't mean you should. Right, that's what I was waiting for you to say. Get paid for something that doesn't exist, that's just still an idea, and then go and build it. But don't just build something just for the sake of building things. So the technology has changed a little bit, but still the mindset of when and how to be an entrepreneur has changed. What attraction is still dollars.

15:50Mark Zmarzly: So let's go back to HipPocket. Yeah. And then of course the HipMoney app, which followed a few years later. Take us through that period because it all happened very quickly. Well, nothing happens quickly, I guess. Well, you know. And the problem we were solving. Let's just say jumping off the wharf into the cold water.

16:12Renate Crollini: Oh, yeah, totally, yeah. So I didn't, I mean, I had not had a business class ever. And at 35 or 36, I was tasked with innovation at a company that basically sold direct mail to banks, right? So I'm like, did really well in sales. They're like, Mark, you're you have good ideas. Why don't you be in charge with innovation? So I said, well, I've never had a business class. I'm going to go take a business class at my university just to kind of understand what entrepreneurship is. It put me in the right place at the right time around the right people because the entrepreneur class itself blessed the guy's heart.

16:41Renate Crollini: But he the teacher, his family had like a furniture making business, you know, which they're still I mean, entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship. You need to learn how to read a balance sheet and cash flow statements. But it wasn't tech enabled in entrepreneurship. But he and another person said hey but there's a startup weekend happening in september you should go and if you're gonna go you gotta pitch an idea and so i was like well and what ideas do i have so i spent like a friday i still have the piece of paper and it was like oh you know like when i was in in financial services because i was still selling you know like like i guess bank marketing stuff um i didn't have a banking background didn't have a finance background at all and i found out my wife and i had like 10 grand in a savings account making 0.1 interest when well this is at a time when like, you know, a super saver account would be like 4.5 % interest.

17:24Renate Crollini: So I'm like, well, I'm losing like$440 every year by not knowing that. But I'm like, I do I have to like go and talk to a bank? Do I have to start reading finance books? Or if I could see other people like me who had 10 grand and what they were doing, certainly the collective wisdom of the other sheep around me would have said, Hey, there's a better deal over here. And I could have just followed them. And as you realize jumping into the entrepreneur founder journey, you don't have to have all the answers it's totally acceptable to build the plane as you're flying it i've actually realized lately that everybody is building the plane as if they're flying so i'm not sure if that's comforting or terrifying like who's actually flying this thing um and so i think it is a mindset to actually really jump in and just back yourself to know that yes i can do it and then surround yourself with people that have your back with you i also think the other interesting thing

18:08Mark Zmarzly: is it's probably the difference between running towards the fire yeah and when you get a mature business you spend all your time risk in risk management making sure no fires break out yeah And it's kind of a very different mindset at that point in time.

18:20Renate Crollini: And there's a little spark there, quick squash it and say, let's go ahead first. So name some wins that you've had as an entrepreneur that you've been saying. So some stories about your wins. Yeah, well, I think the biggest win is the fact that I actually did it. You know, I came back from New York. I met my co-founder, Kate Bennett, as I mentioned. She introduced me to everyone in the sustainability space, in the corporate sustainability space. I interviewed everywhere. I got a few job offers. And then she said, come on board, join me in this startup journey. And I never in a million years thought I would do it.

18:46Renate Crollini: and I did it and for me I think that was probably the hardest thing I've ever done is actually take that leap of faith in myself and be like hold on one second I can do this I am smart enough to do this I am brave enough to do this let's go so I think that was a quick as um the biggest one I've ever had and then just little wins along the way like when you get your first believer you get your first follow-up you get someone that says yeah actually you know what this idea isn't crap let's actually pull in this thread and keep going um and then you get pilot partners up and running and you know you know engagement from people that's organic and not just in your friends and family telling this is a good job.

19:16Renate Crollini: They're all the little things that are wins. And I think as well in Tech Grady Women, we also make sure that we tell our, the founders celebrate the small things. You don't have to celebrate the$1.5 million pre-seed raise that you've just done. Celebrate the fact that someone said, yes, that's a great idea. Or yes, I want to learn more kind of thing because they're important. And each of those add up to a great success story. I set up a whole event once a month called Brag and Tag to do just that. And it's so magical watching people share their little wins. Like even if I sent three emails that I was struggling to send.

19:46Renate Crollini: And the room celebrates you in such an amazing way. So I want to go back to, on the other side of the successes, there's the failures or the flearnings. And what you've learned. Flearnings. I heard that first from Mick Lubinskis.

19:59Mark Zmarzly: Oh, okay.

20:00Renate Crollini: Failed learnings. Learning from your failures. Failures is a big word. But because I know you've got to. I like flearnings. Yeah. Flearnings.

20:06Mark Zmarzly: Yep.

20:07Renate Crollini: Yeah.

20:07Mark Zmarzly: We need to get that Macquarie Dictionary. Okay. The Australian Startup Dictionary, actually. Maybe we need to build that.

20:13Renate Crollini: I've done. yeah that's what i can bet good yeah thanks mick yeah so what are some of your flirtings i will have i have many flirtings i think as well the first one is being comfortable with people saying no and rejection i think that's a really really really important one being comfortable because you will get told no frequently more than you'll be told yes takes 17 years to be an overnight success kind of thing like you know like understanding that um and then my first my first foray into the startup world didn't particularly work so i think learning how to leave something that wasn't working is a huge lesson and I learned a lot from that but I think also understanding when it is the time to pull the trigger and be like I'm done is something that not a lot of people can actually recognize and do so that was like a really big flernings that turned out to be a big learning.

20:58Mark Zmarzly: I want to drill into that one very quickly because it goes back to the mindset that no I'm going to get there I just need to keep pushing a lot of people don't get it right now but I will eventually break through. What was your flirting in that moment about knowing when it was time to say stop enough? Because that's a really, really tough one going back to you believe in something so strongly. And sometimes the perseverance pays off, sometimes it becomes counterproductive.

21:30Renate Crollini: Yeah, and I think it's kind of like a catch-22. You have to back yourself as a founder so much, almost like arrogantly confident that only I can solve this, I have to do it no matter what, there is no plan B and I strongly believe that I am a no plan B person. You know, at the end of the day, you have a result or an excuse, as Julie's heard, it's my favorite saying ever. But then I think as well, you actually have to stop and reflect internally and look at the data, look at the direction and stop and say, is this moving in the way I want it to? Where do I see myself in six months? Does this have a tangible path forward or not?

21:59Renate Crollini: And be really honest with yourself. And that's kind of the conclusion that I came to. And I kind of had that really, realistic moment of, I just don't see a path forward for me anymore.

22:09Mark Zmarzly: I have to call it quits. And let me ask you, because you have a young family and you've got all those responsibilities, does that play a part in that decision as well?

22:18Renate Crollini: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if I was 18 living in my parents' house eating magic noodles, I could do the founder journey for forever. But I'm not. I have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old and a husband, so I have responsibilities and, you know, we are a great family. We do a lot of fun things. So that burden of wanting to contribute, so that also makes a decision without a doubt. And I just want to clarify, I think your mindset also helps. Showing up, I can do this, I can switch, I can be flexible and adaptable. Just noticing those things.

22:44Mark Zmarzly: Parenting is the ultimate context switching.

22:46Renate Crollini: Oh, without a doubt, yeah. The amount of times I'm told I'm not invited to my son's birthday parties and you're the worst mom in the world, like you've got to be agile to take that on your chin, you know, float it off and then just keep moving forward. It's tough. Yeah. In fact, actually, red wine vinegar is five times the antioxidants as apple cider vinegar. So people are having a shot of apple cider vinegar in the morning. Have this, much better, much better for your skin. It also has resveratrol in it. It's good for your liver. So if you like the occasional beverage, this is also the good return.

23:16Renate Crollini: So we went out with red wine vinegar on the cans. I had a team member who was very vocal about this and said, I think you should call it red grape vinegar. I was like, nah, nah, nah, nah, we're good. He was right, really right. You know, I think this has been one of our biggest issues is like, even though people use red wine vinegar at home, they're like, I can't give that to my kids. I'm like we use a halal version of red wine vinegar. Oh, wow, okay. There is zero alcohol, like not even like not even near alcohol, right? But we've hit a bit of war there. That was a flirting for us, right? And, you know, I probably should have, sorry, I probably, I should have listened to my teammate and should have gone with red grape vinegar.

23:56Renate Crollini: But in my head, like you probably as a foodie, I'm like, yeah, but people get red wine. Then I'm like, yeah, but what part of the communities have we cut off by putting the word wine on the label, right? So that was probably, you know, a bit of an error, definitely an error. The second one is that we probably overthought our creativity on this, right? So you see on these cans it says the OG sports drink. Yes, I did like that. Exactly. So the original gangster sports drink. And it's kind of a bit of a push to Gatorade to say, yes, you guys might have created this with the Florida Gators, but 2 ,000 years ago this is what the real athletes were drinking.

24:34Renate Crollini: there we go the odyssey's running well with you at the moment isn't it um so so yeah so we um so we went with that and you know the biggest problem we had was that people just didn't get it right so there's two parts of the challenge we have is the first one we're in a can so consumers straight away we're not in a plastic bottle and merrick and i made it 2024 we said there's no effing way we are making a plastic product now right so we stuck to our guns and and put to the can Challenge number one because consumers follow category components, right? And not in a plastic bottle, sports drink, brain explosion, move to the next thing.

25:12Renate Crollini: So that's problem number one.

25:13Mark Zmarzly: Second problem is - Wow, there's a cognitive dissonance around the idea that a sports drink is in a plastic bottle. 100%. 100%.

25:22Renate Crollini: And this is where like you've got to make it easy for the consumer and that's probably been our challenge. So calling ourselves the OG sports drink in a can and we're bubbly because sports drinks aren't bubbly. can't compute computer says no i'm moving to the next thing so we probably made it harder for ourselves and we didn't communicate that effectively so now we sort of we're taking that massive learning learning and gone let's reposition uh and we've repositioned this now as a hydration soda so it's hydration soda with gut health and that's very much we just want to bang that home so all of our new packaging all of our new design work will be hitting into that you know would i have loved to find that learning out about learning a year and a half ago 100 100%.

26:01Renate Crollini: You know what? This is also the journey you go on. And I think for us, you know, this Australia has always been the major test market. Australian consumers are brilliant. We're absolute assholes. We've got money. We tell people what they think. You know what I mean? Like this is a very, this is a really tough market to survive in. And I think for us, as we start to push to global ambitions, this has been a great market to take those learnings and pull them into the product. what's the f part of this learning the specific story that you might be referring to well maybe

26:32Mark Zmarzly: we can talk about hello canopy okay so my co-founder sam and i who was on this podcast a few months back we started off wanting to solve lived experience of sexual harassment in the startup and tech ecosystem and just generally in the workplace and we built what i thought was a great product. We onboarded our first paying customer and they were using the platform. And we, it was one of those things where we knew people wanted to use it, but the willingness to pay wasn't necessarily there, particularly for HR where budget is limited anyway. Perhaps one of our learnings there was when do you know to persevere versus the signals are not there and I think sometimes they overlap sometimes they're clear but when you're in it it's hard to see those signals sometimes so we we shifted more broadly in HR tech because that problem still existed, but some of the surrounding issues were around communication silos in workplaces, people and culture, as well as, you know, broadly operational, everything you've worked small, medium enterprise, there's communication and data silos everywhere.

27:56Mark Zmarzly: So Hello Canopy sort of evolved to solve for that as well. It was how do you connect your people data with organizational context and be able to surface that really easily and then be able to automate and humanize things more efficiently so that your staff can have better experiences at work. And, you know, everyone, we could see what everyone else was seeing in terms of needs and we had started to build that, but AI changed so rapidly in that, you know, three to six month period. And look at how Claude and Anthropic and OpenAI have changed the ability for you to connect your organisational data and context.

28:36Mark Zmarzly: So I guess it was part of that SaaSpocalypse and we weren't necessarily able to solve that within the runway that we had. So back to the Fleurning, it's about the humility to see signals that might hurt you as the founder, you know, hurt your ego. You really want something to succeed. but the signals are not necessarily there or your ability to build it within the constraints that you have are not necessarily there. And then the focus element, having laser focus and sort of the humility and the discipline to know when you're, when you, where's that scope creep.

29:21Renate Crollini: And, and I'm seeing with all of that, you are now a de-influencer of AI. So, you know, So talk a little bit more about what is D influencer with all that you have learned in your past work?

29:34Mark Zmarzly: I think this is as well, maybe me just getting sick of the hype.

29:38Renate Crollini: Yeah.

29:38Mark Zmarzly: I feel like there's a lot of AI cowboys out there, not to be confused with prompt cowboy, great Australian startup. And I've used them and they've been helpful. I would say an AI cowboy is someone who is super gung ho, gets straight to building, which can be great in some circumstances. but they are doing it without any care for data security and safety, without any care for how it impacts work, each other, people, and also probably do it. Who they steal from along the way. Exactly. It's this weird duality in AI of seeing the potentials but then also seeing the difficulties and the ethical quandaries that we see doing it without any sort of sense of what are the ethics behind how I'm working.

30:24Mark Zmarzly: and then combined with the culture at the moment of algorithmic sound bites and viral hooks. It's sort of throwing viral hooks down people's throats because that's just how the algorithm has trained us to communicate now as content creators and just telling people build this, build that. Comment brain in a jar below for 25 skills that will save you 90 hours this week with no sense of what am I putting into my systems? What am I connecting? And whose data am I playing with? It's one thing to be frivolous with your own data, but it's quite another to use your clients and other people's personal sensitive information with no sense of how it's used by AI.

31:10Renate Crollini: And I found a lot of that focus and direction and frameworks and teaching. And I went through a year of 1 ,000 Women in AI. And as someone who is not a beginner in it, I found it exceptionally valuable. I used a lot of those tools. And say a little bit more of the provenance of women in AI. You talked a little bit about why you started it, the frustration, where it is now, what the feedback has been, and any learnings from that experience.

31:38Mark Zmarzly: Yeah, how far along the 1 ,000 scale are we at this point?

31:41Renate Crollini: Yeah, I also want to say, also, new mom. I just want to reiterate. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 37 weeks pregnant.

31:47Mark Zmarzly: Starting at 30 weeks pregnant.

31:49Renate Crollini: It just was so beautiful how you did it. And it was so focused and easy for anyone to pick up on it.

31:54Mark Zmarzly: So I'm glad because we're often very self-critical. I know, Julie. We are. Yeah, I could have done it way better with different resources. But I also that's when I had to learn to say no, because I couldn't commit to doing I know that live or hybrid format is going to be more engaging from a community perspective. I've got the experience to back that up. But I didn't then have the capacity as a team of one to commit to that. So I made it all online on demand but released each week. But I think maybe this is where I get frustrated with the AI cowboys because every man, woman and their dog is running, they're creating a workshop or some guide to AI at the moment.

32:31Mark Zmarzly: And some of them are legitimately helpful but a significant amount are written by AI. And I think this is maybe why, thank you for the nice feedback on the course, I'm glad you had that experience, but I'm getting a lot of that feedback because I think I didn't use AI to write the course. It's not an AI slot course like a lot of the ones out there. I literally started on my kitchen bench with post-it notes. I used learning design principles and experience to craft a learning journey, not just how do we summarise key elements that people need to know. And it then became 10 modules, originally over four weeks, because I know it's hard for particularly women who have not much time outside of work.

33:20Mark Zmarzly: Certainly the data shows less free time than male counterparts. How do you commit this time when you are juggling so many different things? It ended up needing to stretch beyond that because I think I provided a bit too much content for a free thing. We're flexible.

33:36Renate Crollini: You're adaptable and we need to do that. I appreciate it.

33:40Mark Zmarzly: It's time for Built on Oracle, our monthly check-in with Aussie founders scaling on the next-gen cloud. I'm checking in today with Aria Kartawiya, the head of technology at MX Store. Thanks for joining us on Startup360, Aria. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here. Great to have you. Now, give us a quick intro into your business and where you are on your scale-up journey.

34:05Renate Crollini: We're a group company now of about 10 e-commerce stores and we have warehouses throughout Australia dispatching directly

34:15Mark Zmarzly: to customers and also B2B. So tell me, what's the one growth milestone you're most proud of? I definitely think it was going from one warehouse to three

34:25Renate Crollini: over a 26-hour long shift. Oh, wow.

34:31Mark Zmarzly: I'd need a good lie down after that. So tell me, what's been one of the biggest challenges as you've scaled? speed speed of data the more data that we have the slower traditional systems are so how has oracle helps you scale with confidence and pursue that next stage of growth heatwave is definitely

34:52Renate Crollini: one of the key strategies that we use to take all of that data and actually make it accessible instantly. Working so closely with our solutions engineer, he pretty much feels like he's part of the team. We actually let him come into the office and run his own meetings in our rooms here. So he feels very accessible to us. And that is something that other providers don't really nail.

35:23Mark Zmarzly: Absolutely. Thanks for stopping by, Aria. Really appreciate having you on Startup360. Oh, it's been an honor. Thank you. This segment is supported by Oracle. Build, test, and deploy on Oracle Cloud with a free trial. Visit oracle.com slash ANZ slash cloud slash free to get started.

35:43Renate Crollini: But we didn't have an earn out over four years or anything like that. So in theory, if I say, hey, guys, this is not working, and they all just walk away, all that equity just goes out the door. I could never raise on that. It wouldn't make any sense for me to continue with the company with less than like 50 % of the company. I wouldn't even have, I mean, it just fraught with problems. So I had to go to these guys and be like, hey, this is the last thing. Like, I don't think this is working out. And I've had our lawyers draw up these papers here where you're gonna sign everything back to me except what would have been accrued on a four-year investing had this been in place.

36:16Renate Crollini: If you don't do this, then you're gonna walk away with that equity, but the company's just gonna die. We're gonna spin it down. It was great accelerator, but that's it. Or if you send it back to me, you have two and a half. They'd be able to say I'd like two and a half percent each to have something that could be worth something if I continue to run with it. Would you do that or not? And give you, you know, 24, 48 hours to think about it. But the next week was demo day. So it was like that close to the end. Still didn't have a product. We were about ready to close our first bank customer. And we ultimately did.

36:43Renate Crollini: But that was like all that pressure. I mean, like going through 14 weeks of like work still had nothing to show for it. Co-founder issues like the company is basically ready to die and no vesting schedule in place. Like I made all those mistakes, like pretty early in the journey. Great. Relationships and learning. Absolutely. So you see it when it's happening the next time. Yeah. Yeah. And now it's like one of those things, like, you know, do you have, when you mentor startups or I'm investing in them, like what's the relationship like working with this person? Hopefully you have a lot of relationship, like history of working with them.

37:13Renate Crollini: Fantastic. If not, how do you guys address conflict? What, what give me two examples of areas where you guys have disagreed on something. How did that work out? What was that like? So things like that. And then, of course, getting your legal structures in place and your vesting schedules, those are mandatory. And it's also when you're dating or trying to meet with investors, what kind of investors you want. Like they might be writing a big check, but can you, you know, marry them? Yeah, absolutely.

37:38Mark Zmarzly: Absolutely.

37:38Renate Crollini: Yeah, yeah. Or do you want to see play out in the federal court?

37:41Mark Zmarzly: Or do you want to see play out in the federal court?

37:43Renate Crollini: Exactly.

37:44Mark Zmarzly: Very publicly, I'm sure. So you got to that point six years down the track. So let's bring it forward. It worked. Yeah, it did. The three of me guys walked away with a check.

37:57Renate Crollini: Yeah, well, they walked away with the equity accrued. And then on demo day, I presented, like, there was no technology still. It was screenshots of what the app would look like. But between them walking away, we had a key meeting with a bank that I didn't really actually know them very well. So they didn't know my history of, like, you know, working with banks or whatever. But we did the very smart thing was we had interviewed a bunch of customers and stuff. And so the problem was in the mortgage space. So it still was comparing you against other people just like you. And the idea was, tell us about your mortgage and tell us a little bit about yourself.

38:28Renate Crollini: So your FICO score, which is like your credit score, what your income is, the zip code, how much you have left on the balance of your loan and how much your house is worth. And I'll show you if you're getting a good deal in the Lincoln, Nebraska market. Right. So we were able to buy like a data set, do this little like essentially like a form. And at the end of it, you got your calculation. And if you weren't doing well, we said, would you give us 48 hours and we'll call around and we'll get you some bids from a bank or whatever. So we were physically picking up the phone still today because banks wouldn't even tell you what the mortgage rate was on their website.

38:57Renate Crollini: And then we walked one woman in, their name, Mary Anderson, into a local bank and got her a new mortgage with that bank. Then we called up the head of marketing the next day at the bank and we said, hey, we just generated you guys a new loan worth$400 ,000 house or whatever. The margins on that would be 1 % over the 30 years. Here's what you're going to make on that. We'd love to tell you a little bit more about how we did it and what we think we can do for your bank to get more of those. Would you want us to come in? Meeting was 10 a.m. the next day. We went through about seven different screens.

39:23Renate Crollini: So we mocked up their website, how the tool would work in there. The woman that we did, the quote from her. And before we got to the pricing, the head of marketing, bless his heart, goes, stop talking. We're in. And I'm like, we didn't even say what the price was. We don't even know how much it's going to cost to build. You solved their problem. We'll get back to you on that thing there. And then two days later, we got the commercial agreement signed. So my demo day was a bunch of screenshots for a product that did not exist. But we had a signed contract for twenty thousand five hundred dollars.

39:51Renate Crollini: Amazing. Yeah. For something that did not exist and wouldn't even exist for another six months after that. Yeah. But could you build it now and overnight? Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. But now I say it would be a feature. I mean, even now, looking back at my entrepreneurial journey, I think I had a feature dressed up as a company than a company that was really worth something. So nowadays, I think, yeah, the tools are better, but I would have a totally different mindset on entrepreneurship.

40:11Mark Zmarzly: now yeah that's interesting and let's get to 2019 and the sale just take us through that process

40:19Renate Crollini: well it was very interesting because we had a u.s entity and australian entity because of tax reasons and also because the government grant here did not want any money going to the u.s entity they wanted to stay in australia which makes total sense so um when the contract the contract with bank of queensland was going to be due up here and the way that we licensed it that means inside baseball back end stuff but we licensed all the technology from the u.s company to australia for a dollar just in case it was going to be useful here but the contract with the bank was kind of develop something new for them which we could then sell to any other bank outside of australia so turtles all the way down they call it here right yeah um but when bank of queensland did not renew and this story like uh it's just one of those gutted things where i said to them because i'm waiting for my permanent residency to come through okay i am self-employed in australia and yet the Australian government, whether it's federal or state, it was very complicated because they don't want to hear that you're a sole entrepreneur, basically, which I was.

41:15Renate Crollini: We had a CTO that we had hired here, a new entity here. They didn't want to hear that all your revenue was basically holding on one customer. They didn't want to know how you're going to support yourself. You got a family, you got a wife and three kids here. So I had to like basically like have all these like documentation around how this contract with the Bank of Queensland was like, you know, was a cornerstone to our ability to stay there, but not cornerstone to our ability to make money globally, right? so when being a queensland i said just if we're not going to renew which i think it was like august 1st like renewal date if we're not going to renew let me know ahead of time please don't just like you know spring this on me whatever oh no no it's gonna be great and in the meantime this like in the months before that like the ceo had gotten fired the cio had gotten fired cto had gotten fired i think i remember and one of those was a champion of ours in there and she was fantastic and then so there's like a junior person was over there and they the junior person invites me in the cto out for a beer on friday after we just had this amazing internal like demo showcase and they're like yeah we're not going to renew the contract i think that like i think that aha moment and julia i'd like your opinion on this as well for all of the women that come through our programs they all they all get to that aha moment some of them even if they're aha moment is they come to the program and they've got no idea they've got a few ideas but they're not sure which one it is So at the end of the eight weeks can now clearly hone in on one problem and speak articulately to it.

42:35Renate Crollini: They may not have developed it any further, but they now know that this is their passion to another moment where they've really refined their pitch and their narrative and they're out now fundraising. And it's everything in between. It's the pivot. It's the mindset. It's the, I am so committed to doing this. And I feel like they get there on their own with a little bit of coaxing from the mentors. No, you disagree? No, no, no. Yeah, the mentors, but also from each other. You said it earlier that it's a lonely journey. And a lot of times when I'm in the room, I try not to be the expert in the room because I'm not.

43:05Renate Crollini: I'm holding the space and I have them do the pitches and the rest of the people, the rest of the founders give feedback or this is what I heard. So really feeling heard in that room. And I'm going to use my quote again. Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average individual, it is almost indistinguishable. Oh, yeah. So I make sure that they're feeling heard and they get there because someone else heard what they had to say and getting feedback. And everyone loves one another. It's not like your mom or your mom's like going to sign up for your company because of love. Yeah. But you have real women watching each other's journey.

43:35Renate Crollini: So I think that's the added bonus as well. Absolutely. I think that's one of the really special things about the Tech Ready Women programs and the community that we're building with Female Founder Grow is that these women all do support and champion each other because they all genuinely want each other to succeed. They don't see themselves as competitors. They see themselves as champions and as first customers of each other. And you're 100 % right, like in those workshops and in those, you know, small group coaching to see someone say, what I really resonated with you was this piece. And why don't you lean into that more?

44:02Renate Crollini: And when you said these words, oh, I got goosebumps. And that really makes sense to me. And sharing that feedback in a kind way, just to help each other. It's amazing to watch. The challenge with that, however, is mentor whiplash. Yeah. And so I usually, I tell the founders at the beginning, I say, you're going to get conflicting feedback from a lot of the founders. And so really listen, listen to your gut. Also thank whoever's giving the information because they're coming, it's all coming from a good place. Look at where they're coming from. And you know, that's, that's a real big challenge that not every advice is the right advice.

44:37Renate Crollini: A hundred percent. If you ask 10 people for their opinion, you'll get 12 responses as well. So like you got to, yeah, take it all with a grain of salt.

44:43Mark Zmarzly: Ask 10 accountants how the economy is going, you get 15 responses. Going back to the gut thing, I want to ask you about the role of instinct in building a business. Yeah. Where does it sit? Because we talk about data and AI is all about data now and we figure that we can throw enough stuff in there that an answer will come out. Yeah. Hallucinated or not. Yeah. Well, this is every founder idea is an hallucination to begin with. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got to build something out of that hallucination. Yeah. What role does it play?

45:17Renate Crollini: I think it plays a big role but it shouldn't be the only role. I think instinct with good data and a good assessment is the perfect match and, you know, the grit and resilience. You do have to trust your gut because sometimes things just feel off or they just feel right and I think it's the universe telling you, you know, which way or the other. I do think it's important. I don't think you can just follow your heart and your gut. I do think you have to look at data and see is this a problem worth solving? is this a solution that's the right one for it? Is this the team to do it? But you do have to have a little bit of that gut and that heart to get you across.

45:47Renate Crollini: So you're talking about the face in front of the brand and the brand itself, and you've been really diligent about bringing it to startup events and tasting it and the storytelling behind it. But there's also the people behind the brand, behind you. So like me reaching out to Merrick, I reached out to Camilla, your wife, just to hear what she has to say.

46:08Mark Zmarzly: Quote, but not quite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is, she said. Infallible as well.

46:13Renate Crollini: We also have a Jesus story as well. We'll tell that. Great. So living with Edson's Posca means we are all living a Posca life. This is my wife? This is your wife. He is never not in Posca land. Even when he sleeps, he's still dreaming Posca. Great story. What I love is that he's always so positive, resonated what Merrick said, and in every downturn he always sees a way up. So we will get to the flirtings and those stories. I love how he's brought us all on the journey, gets us involved So we are part of the story. If it's asking the kids and I about new can designs, flavors, getting their friends to try it, which I was one of those.

46:46Renate Crollini: So thank you. I enjoyed going through the market conversation, the marketing conversation. This is what I love being a classroom teacher and seeing kids, the entrepreneur that you get the kids on stage at events like the good food show, triathlons, sponsoring their school events or even taking them on deliveries. so that's real education dipping them at their toes into seeing what you're doing and um it's hard work and how to be an entrepreneur entrepreneur but what it takes to succeed that's nice yeah so how is it being in the family life and and tell me i'm useless at any point of that so that was nice of her yeah great yeah so um but that the family life being an entrepreneur and stepping away from a big company, you know, the GM at Lyon into this, it changes things.

47:34Renate Crollini: But it sounds like you bring your positive energy everywhere. Oh, look, I like what Camilla said there. I have to say that's been one of the joys for me as well is taking the kids, my journey from entrepreneur to entrepreneur and taking the kids on that path, right? Like all I want them is to know that, you know, there's the old saying of hard, you know, know good luck is the intersection between hard work and opportunity right like that's that's a real focus for me and i want them to see that um and you know and i don't like have to beg like the good food and wine show i was like hey look guys we got to do saturday sunday we're actually short staffed tilly you know do you mind doing sunday harry can you do saturday he's 12 she's 14 and they're like sure in it and they smashed it right and they just get into it and i think as a as a father just going i want them to know the value of hard work and i want them to see that you know whatever happens, the ups and downs, and this is really scary.

48:28Renate Crollini: And they hear all the tough conversations at home to know that, okay, you know, how do we, how do we prevail? And, um, you know, I think that's for me being a really good journey. Plus they love driving in the van. I'll be honest. Like it's actually the van that they love the most. Which I see parked all around the neighborhood. It's fun. I smile when I see it. Yeah. Yeah. I do park it pretty much outside. So yeah, that's great. Having, having both a co-founder, a very supportive co-founder and a supportive, fun, engaged family. That's great.

48:52Mark Zmarzly: That's nice. Thank you, Camilla. I want to keep digging into the family side of it because it's part of what we explore in this show. So you were talking just then about seeing the hard work, the understandings. What comes out of the mouth of babes from these conversations? Are they questions that they're asking and saying, Dad, about what's going on?

49:13Renate Crollini: Yeah, look, they don't hide their thoughts, right?

49:18Mark Zmarzly: You get some pretty honest feedback.

49:20Renate Crollini: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. like you know my favorite at the moment is like you know when i say something at the dinner table to matilda you know something about she'll ask money for a spriggy or whatever and i'll be like come on tilly we're not you know made of money and he goes oh sorry i'll ask the person who earns money at this table and and look at camilla right and i'm like oh this is like so so they constantly remind me that you know we we are obviously making a constant sacrifice on this on this journey, which I think is their passive aggressiveness, which I'm not sure where they get that from.

49:54Renate Crollini: But, but, you know, look, it's, it's, it is, yeah, look, I think it is good. The other part to that is that, you know, they like, you know, come home for a bad day and stuff. I do try and make sure they understand if I'm having a conversation, the, the, the reason why this has happened versus that side of things. Like I think as kids, even if they decide to do music or arts or whatever they want to do in the future. I think whatever path they choose on, understanding a little bit about business is really important. So, you know, I think that's been a part. So, yeah, I don't know if I've answered your question properly, Simon, at all.

50:27Mark Zmarzly: Oh, look, I just think it's that relationship with children and being a founder, which can take a lot of time away. It comes at an opportunity cost for family on occasion. And if you can find ways to engage with them and let's just say encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs along the way i mean the fact that they get to get up on stage and sort of be part of oh exactly the experience and like we're doing new can design

50:52Renate Crollini: work at the moment right and they've been in every step of the way right and i i literally do test with them right and you know get their thoughts because they will be brutal um and you know then when they start seeing it in like the the the sample version they're like you can see them touch and see that come to life and i actually think like my childhood i had none of that right Like I didn't have any exposure to those kind of things. So they're actually starting to jump ahead already of me in terms of my learnings and everything else because they've been able to be exposed to that business in that way.

51:24Renate Crollini: So, yeah, look, I love it. My son's like, you know, right now, again, I'll let them choose whatever career they want to do. But he wants to do this thing where he wants to be a shoe designer. I'm like, cool, go for it, dude. Like and he can see the process that we're going through and he's understanding how that model works. And that might turn him off one day. But right now it's actually inspiring him. So I actually had to like relearn all the rules of basketball. I started playing as an adult at 45, basically. So I discovered it late in life. But what I found was, and this is a great example with talking to like AJ from Startup Daily.

51:55Renate Crollini: He and I are talking at an event, didn't even know each other. And he's like, oh, so what are you interested in besides startups? I go, I don't know, basketball? His eyes lit up as if I just frigging won like a slot machine lottery, like triple cherries. He was like, I love basketball. So what I found in Australia is that people are passionate about basketball are really passionate about it because it's not as common of a sport as rugby or footy or whatever. So you tap into that passion of like basketball. It is an alternative to the pizza and beer networking events. So when we do our basketball, whether it's a big tournament or I got to run at four o 'clock today, King George courts, the people that rock up there are looking for a different networking experience.

52:33Renate Crollini: It's mentally, it's physically just exhilarating. You get to see Maxine Minter has played with us and there's a loose ball on the floor. She's diving for that. She's hardcore. She is going to get that effing ball from anybody else who's on the floor. Like, like, and then, and that's the kind of investor I want on my cap table.

52:47Mark Zmarzly: She's like a Darwin croc. Absolutely. Absolutely.

52:52Renate Crollini: Killer. And so when you see that, where you see somebody being like generous with passing and looking to have the team win, not just them to always hit the game winning shot. So you get to see a lot of different, like, I guess, perspectives of people out there. and it's just i think we did the first tournament which was like i think 70 people in 2024 i did it as like a build in public because we didn't even know you know would anybody come can we get that level of sponsorship because we've been doing little runs of like five on five or whatever you know drop five bucks in we'll cover the court costs whatever but i did it as a build in public and we ended up we had like 19 000 in sponsorship 70 000 people and we've grown that tournament kind of year over year.

53:30Renate Crollini: And this last one, we had, you know, 16 teams, 120 players,$29 ,000 in sponsorships, a free kit for everybody prizes, all this lunch afterward. And it's just responding to the market. So it was something that I wanted to see exist in the world, much like most founders with an idea. The problem was there weren't alternatives to just beer and pizza, like startup striders hadn't started yet, I think, or they started the same month, actually, that we did. But now there's different alternatives. But you could tell the appetite for people to want a different way to network and meet people was fantastic.

53:59Renate Crollini: I've closed business off of it. I know at least one entrepreneur who their VC played with the chairman of another organization. They've signed a seven figure deal because of basketball, like these things matter. And like how you meet people in a different way. It's phenomenal. It's play. You're in flow. There's no, there's the walls are down differently and your interaction with people and humans wanting to make each other look good again. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a really amazing.

54:24Mark Zmarzly: So you've got two young people who are probably at an era where they'll go watch software in about sort of 10 years from now. It's like I just kind of feel like it's the discussions you have around faxes and hard drives and everything else. Dial-ups. Yes, we grew up with. So it's going to be an extraordinary transformation. Well, let's talk about the little. What do you want for them? For my kids. Yeah. And all kids moving forward. I was actually, I was reflecting on this the other day. And I think what I want from a technology perspective for them is for, for technology to simply enable them.

55:07Mark Zmarzly: I don't want technology. Yes, it might replace jobs and things, but at its heart, technology is supposed to enable what we're already doing. Even if we have to change what we're doing, it should be an add on to us as humans having human experiences and using our brain. My biggest fear is that it replaces their ability to think. And we're already slipping into that trap now, putting our brain in a jar, sticking it on a shelf and forgetting that AI should be a thinking partner, not thinking for us. And I did a tour of the primary school that Leo will go to, and the principal was talking about how they're already starting to think about AI use in the classroom.

55:50Mark Zmarzly: And I noticed myself getting a bit fearful because I don't know how to, how it could or should be used. And maybe that is the theme of, I don't want to make decisions based on fear or based on ignorance and hype. It's how do we just understand how things work first? And, and I don't want technology to not only lose our ability to think, but our ability to be curious. Curiosity for me is one of the most important skills. And that's something that will stand the test of time, irrespective of however things change over the next three, six months, 12 months, years. I want kids to be able to play and retain that.

56:32Renate Crollini: I used to tell my teachers when I was a technology specialist in a middle school, and also the curiosity and the critical thinking skills, I worry that that's going away, is it's a very expensive tool, like a tool in a toolbox, a hammer, a screwdriver. And it's getting to the point, I worry, I start to think about two or three, four generations from now, your kids that are going into school where AI is a tool, that it's going to be a no-brainer. Whereas generations that were before us, what has become extinct from them that we use every day? Like mobile phones, how can we get around without having a mobile phone?

57:09Renate Crollini: so that i don't know if that's inevitable that it's going to happen that ai that's what how it's going to change the thinking but we are the last analog only generation we grew up where there was none of that digital stuff and we're coming in with this cautiousness whereas the kids are growing up and that's what they're used to so the fear is fear is very valid i'm i'm more concerned

57:29Mark Zmarzly: actually about the fact that for all of our arguments over ai stealing our ideas and you who's paying for it and who's monetising it. It is a data set of original thinking by human beings and my concern would be that two generations from now when the AI is fed on a solid diet of AI and the only thing it knows is AI reinforcing AI, where does the original thinking come from going back to the idea that what you're selling is an homogenisation product? It might be sooner than that even. Yeah. And I think that's where we need to be more conscious and conscientious of how we use it. And I think because, you know, AI has been around for a lot longer than it has been democratized with ChatGPT and Claude, but I think we too quickly folded it into our workflows.

58:27Mark Zmarzly: And now we default to it without thinking, okay, do I actually want to post on LinkedIn? Do I have something important to say and why do I want to say it? It's help me craft a LinkedIn post on the topic of X. And it sounds the same as everyone else because everyone else has defaulted to the same workflow. So yeah, the AI slop feeding AI slop is a problem. And I think this is the hard part around having more diversity in all areas of AI and that includes building it and training it and did you see the data that came out recently of people who are supposed to be training or checking the training data have admitted anonymously to using ai to do it instead of actually doing it themselves so that's why i say it could be sooner than two generations from now this is how we're going to wipe ourselves out that's human laziness and human choice yep i think we forget the autonomy that we have as humans and we need to sort of just take a beat and remember how incredible humans are and need to continue to be well you better

59:37Renate Crollini: bring it home we are going to bring it home it's we're we're nearing the end and through all of this thing stuff that you've shared you're not only linear career path launching two things at once a child and a company um what is something you want to leave the audience with your question something that can get back to you what are some words of wisdom that you have oh that's a that's a

59:59Mark Zmarzly: tough one maybe not a word of wisdom but an a question a plea a plea right think about what type of world you want without getting maybe overly philosophical but what type of world do you want what type of humanity do we want to have now and leave behind and always start there grounded in human values before even considering AI. And I'm not anti-AI. I am pro-responsible AI, but always bring it back to humanity. What do we want our world to look like and how do we want our human experience to be? In that context, I'm going to finish with the question I like to ask. What's Emma's idea of joy? That is a hard one because becoming a mum and really losing myself that first postpartum, I've had to really take a long time to sort of rediscover my sense of self and therefore my sense of joy.

1:01:04Mark Zmarzly: And I think I really struggle with being present and yet presence is what brings me joy. So I think what brings me joy is a feeling of presence.

1:01:19Renate Crollini: How human are you?

1:01:21Mark Zmarzly: I'm not saying I do it well, but it's what brings me joy and it's what I'm striving towards every time. And at the moment when I feel like I'm just sort of getting in that newborn, you know, fog, it's weird. I look at my son Tom's little toes and I just take a second. Little baby toes. Yep. I think my favourite parts of being a new parent were just lying on the floor looking at them and they look back at me. At the park. Yeah. Because I live in Vaucluse and just there's something so hypnotising about looking at the ocean. Yep. And having the sunshine. You can feel it on your skin and, yeah. Or just watching them exploring the world, discovering the world.

1:02:03Mark Zmarzly: It's such a beautiful experience to be able to re-experience life through a little one's eyes as well. Well, I hope you enjoyed that special episode of Startup360. Thanks, of course, to my colleague Julie Trell, co-host who is hopefully now unpacking boxes in her new house in the Inner West. Hope the move went well, Jules, and you're surviving just fine. She will, of course, be back next week. And we'll be back next Friday as well. In the meantime, best of luck to the Brisbane fans and the Frio fans. And it is, of course, the AFL grand final this week. My brave swans went so close last Friday night.

1:02:44Mark Zmarzly: It was wonderful to be there with 45 ,000 people. They played their hearts out, couldn't quite get there. That sport, like building a startup, it's life. And we pick ourselves up and start again. This show is a Smart Co Media production produced and edited by the fantastic Matt Jackson, who's also had a tough week, of course, with the Sharkies going down in their game to East. but he's picking himself back up and does an amazing job as always thank you so much to him to ella to james of course and to deal for their support now you'll find us on spotify you'll find us on apple and of course you can watch on youtube don't forget to hit like subscribe and of course you'll get it straight into your inbox every friday afternoon and also head to startup daily.net where you can read all the latest news everything i talked about at the top of the show in the deal spiel absolutely free and i'll even send you my new email with a editor's note on a saturday morning how good would that be right across everything you need to know you have a great weekend we'll see you next friday bye for now