The power of data: Seer’s Kristi Mansfield on connection and community in the AI age

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0:46Hello and welcome. Woodrig Amawara from Mechanical Lands here in Sydney. It's time for Startup 360. I'm Simon Thompson and I am joined by the effervescent, ever fabulous, ever Chief Play Officer Julie Trell Great to have you Did you have a fantastic time last Thursday night at the Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards? I did, I did It was great to hear Allegra Spender Yep She was wonderful Everyone was so impressed with her She was wonderful I had to tell her that I'm leaving her electorate, which was unfortunate Yep And I loved the table that I was with We were a bunch of CCNs, all women and one man.

1:23There was so many great women winners on Thursday night. I was pleased to see that. And, of course, Paz won yet again, second year in a row. She was delighted. Deserved. For the Community Collective, which was really exciting. And I just think everyone was invigorated. They dressed beautifully. Congratulations to everyone. You can see the photos. We do have some. I think we sent an email out this week sharing the photos. And to everyone who applied and showed up, I mean, just submitting yourself and backing yourself is really something to celebrate. It was a hotter ticket than the NFL and the MCG the following day because I know at 5 o 'clock I was getting messages and a few others were.

2:09It's like, are there any spare tickets for tonight? It's like, sorry, no. It was great to have a friend of the show, Bronte Campbell, there as well. She presented one of the awards and shared some of her founder story and had a great night. I think everyone just really enjoyed themselves. Very well run. Thank you so much. Very well run. Thank you for being a part of it. Thank you for having me. Let's talk about our brilliant guest today. Who's coming along, Julie? So today we have Christy Mansfield. I have known her for about nine years because when I saw her pitch, I wanted to make sure that she got into Mirror D and she's working on data and social impact.

2:43Well, she must have just launched SEER Data Analytics when you first met her. Yeah, she had been around for about a year or two. Fantastic. Really interesting, diverse career. Yeah. But built an incredible business now. From the corporate to the impact to the change of technology and pivoting and adapting all along. One of the things Allegra talked about was risk and purpose. So two things, but purpose, the importance of purpose in driving your risk. Christy is very much about purpose in everything that she does. Absolutely. Data, measuring, informing, making decisions, government, social impact, and bringing community together.

3:24Well, before we go any further, I do want to say that Startup 360 is supported by Deal. Hire, manage, and pay anyone, anywhere. Thanks to Deal for their support. Should we do a little bit of Deal spiel before we catch up with Christy? Now, we mentioned the awards last week, but Friday, probably when I would have liked to have had a little bit more downtime, of course, the federal government dropped its responses to the capital gains tax and everything that's going on in that front, VCs as well. They listened, interestingly enough. I still think there's a lot of work to go in terms of how it will all unpack, but there was some good news in what Treasury and Treasurer Jim Chalmers had to say.

4:12And you get another round of feedback. This is the exciting part. So a couple of the key charges are in the startup carve-out for the capital gains tax overhaul is they've cut the minimum holding period of shares from five to three years, which is great. They've removed the$10 million lifetime cap on gains, and they've also extended the eligibility for companies from 10 years to 15, so an extra five years on that. Now, the exposure draft legislation came out on Friday. I would suggest you go and have a look at it. It's called the Innovative Business CGT Concession, the IBCC. And they want feedback on that by September 28.

4:59So that was the area talking about what does innovation mean, innovative? Is that what kind of furry, fuzzy? That was part of my point that, you know, the mystery is still there. there's still a lot of work to do on this but it was good that there seemed to be some movement on what was going on one of the points i made is there's a little bit of uh of detail in the fine print that we have to be careful around because the draft gives relief for takeovers to accommodate employee share schemes and provide transitional access for qualifying investments made before July 27. The devil remains buried in the details of the legislative machinery, including the fine print of the exposure draft explanatory memorandum and the exposure draft legislative instrument.

5:43So there are three documents you have to read. And what I wrote was one trap is that an investor could qualify, and this comes back to the investors, or could buy qualifying shares in a registered startup, but later on, they could become disqualified assets. If the startup stops meaning it's a predominant activity test or it's registration suspended and cancelled. So part of the obligations here, because government does love a little bit of bureaucracy and compliance, is that you have to file annually. And so a missing annual report could mean that you could have your registration cancelled or suspended.

6:22And I go back to what happened with Canva in the last few years. So there's a 10-year-old company that for three years didn't file. Now they paid a fine and life went on. But in this context, given everything else that's going on and founders are not always the best on paperwork, lots of good intentions, but I also think it takes them a little bit away from being able to focus on what they need to do. And this one is does government, does Treasury truly believe that somehow the spirit of what they're doing has just been a rort all along and suddenly it changes. It's a little bit like when you're asked, you know, has your disability suddenly self-cured itself?

7:09Please, please fill out. Are you a little less blind than you were previously? You know, there are those weird moments and it feels like that same sort of mindset is going on in this. The fintech sector is also still concerned. Fintech Australia CEO Rihanna Delmeida said that the new draft is an improvement but is still fundamentally flawed and an existential threat to fintech innovation. The central problem remains certainty. A tax incentive wrapped in uncertainty is not an incentive, was the point that he made. So a lot to go through. All I could say is, yes, you can get some of the detail from what I wrote on startupdaily.net, but I would say make the time, go and have a look.

7:47We've got, what, a little over 10 days? No, two weeks. We've got two weeks to go, less than that now, to get your submissions in by September 28th. So please go and do that. But I think that's enough for this week. Oh, the one other thing I should mention was the Victorian opposition. There's the November 28th state election coming up in Victoria. The opposition spokesperson for finance has said that if they get in, and all the polling is saying that they will get in after 12 years of the Labor government, One of the first things they're going to do is get rid of the Breakthrough Victoria Venture Capital Fund.

8:30Now, that's the$2 billion one that Tim Pallas set up five years ago. Of course, he trimmed it a little bit. And more recently, in July this year, they merged Breakthrough Victoria with LodgeVic to create Innovation Victoria. But they've invested around about$500 million across 100 companies. and not all of them have been a rip-roaring success. That's the nature of venture. They've also invested a lot into other VC funds, especially at the university level, that's enabled them to back their own research commercialisation. So I do think it's had some good, but, of course, in recent years there have been some very big critics of the program.

9:13I do believe that CEO Rod Bristow knows what he's doing. He came out of venture and 30 years of doing this. And I hope that because they're also promising to exit all of these investments and the belief is that they'll save $1.2 billion over the next 10 years. The point that the opposition makes is that, you know, given the size of the Victorian deficit, we need to save every penny. But given that the Liberal Party is generally the party of entrepreneurialism, I am a little bit surprised by this one. I know that companies like Worldview, which is the space balloon business from the US that's come out here, have some question marks around it.

10:02But there are a lot of good small. Bomb Global is one that earlier this month they invested, I think, about half a million dollars in a co-investment. That's helping with IVF. they've backed companies that definitely deserve backing that might be a market failure for other VC fund theses and they've backed women founders and they've backed Victorian startups, most importantly, and it comes at a time when the New South Wales government has just announced its own$150 million fund that it's going to launch if it wins the next election. So I'm a little bit, hopefully there might be a change of heart, but if you do believe in what they've been doing and what they've done and whether we should hang on to the investments, there have been a couple of decent ones.

10:49I know there's been a 5Xer. It feels like a little bit early to be having put this money in and pull it out again and it creates that sort of weird uncertainty that only politicians can on occasion, especially when you have a change of government. And the risk tolerance. It's a risk tolerance question and seesawing. Yeah, well, it's a pretty good group who are now running the board. They cleared out a few of the political, let's say, appointees. There has been politicians who were on it and it's run by a pretty solid group of people who come from a business venture background. Minik Conhetti's on there.

11:33Susan Oliver's on there. Of course, she created Scale. She's been working on the Alice Anderson Fund. an absolute pioneer of backing women, startups and venture. So these are good people and I think the government hopefully will listen to them and trust them. We saw Lee Jasper step off the stage with the merger, but I hope there's a little bit of a rethink on this one. It feels like an easy kick, but again, for a sector that is having a little bit of a tough time when it comes to access to capital, I think it plays an important, government plays an important role in the market failure side. And there's a lot of potential upside.

12:15Yes, not always going to get it right. No venture fund does. Shall we take a quick break? Let's take a quick break and come back with Christy. All right. 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 fast-growing companies trust Deal to move fast. Visit deal.com slash 360. That's D-E-E-L dot com slash 360. I will be right back. Welcome back. it gives me great pleasure to introduce not only an amazing entrepreneur in the social impact space, but also someone I can call a friend.

13:12We have Christy Mansfield, who is the CEO and founder of See Your Data Analytics. And she will be also talking about a new platform that she has built. Christy, she built it in 2016, so it's a decade old. Things have changed. That's ancient in technology terms. She's not ancient, but she's not. So Christy, tell us your story. Oh, thanks, Julie, for that beautiful intro and really happy to be here. Yeah, it's been a really interesting journey. We started off working to make data more accessible to local organizations, not for profits, people working in communities and place based initiatives to improve outcomes for people.

13:54reusing public data and then we realised, you know, there's so many data assets that are held by community or perhaps held by government that need to be shared so that people working in places to improve outcomes in their context, in their communities, can have access to all the information they need to make better decisions but also to tell the story of impact. And now, you know, we had a vision that SEER communities would be data infrastructure at the grassroots and now in Australia. It's used in more than 90 communities around Australia and has really formed how that central truth that a community holds can shape where the money goes and give community essentially power in their decision making.

14:41And that's proven in Australia. And that's part of the reason why we've been invited into the northeast of England to effectively operationalize the devolution strategy for place-based investment. So what we've done, and we've realized that we've, you know, now that we've been doing it actually for eight years since the platform has been live, that we've really shaped how this can work and it's being applied in other places around the world. You always have some great stories. So talking about a storytelling platform, can you share a story of how Seer Data and Analytics has helped an organization that is one of your customers and or the government who they're doing reporting to?

15:23Yeah, I mean, there's many examples. Probably the most, you know, high profile example is the community of Burke who wanted to reduce juvenile crime and keep kids out of the justice system. And so by bringing together all the different data assets to see what they need to shift and prevent, in order to prevent young people from entering the justice system, they've been able to implement early intervention programs to effectively reduce those outcomes and improve lives in Bourke. And, you know, effectively now the community of Bourke is reporting that 50 % of people believe they're completely involved in decision making for where the money goes, what policies are implemented on the ground and then how to shape outcomes for the whole community.

16:16And so that's being repeated across Australia and now in the UK. So it sounds like it's both socially, the recidivism and the economic value of it being able to direct money in the right place or saving money. Yeah. And see also the empowerment of the participation from the community. rather than data. Data is often seen as, you know, the precious, which is held by institutions and government and communities don't have access to it. Yeah. And it ends up being the old lies, lies and damn statistics moment to bring up Mark Twain. So it's one of those things where I think it's, we've had five years in start-ups of saying, we're going to take all this unstructured data, we're going to turn it into something amazing and this is going to be the future.

17:00and suddenly AI has turned up and rewritten the rules all over again and it's also democratised data in many ways for people. You only need a Claw or a ChatGPT account and you can pull up some pretty impressive stats and data to mount an argument. So how have you seen that transform what you're doing at SEER over the last few years? Well, I think the main thing that we think about is making sure data governance is in place because when communities or when organisations are sharing data, you have to be, you know, really secure. So we have ISO 27001 accreditation. We manage data governance right down to the actual variable and who and what gets shared with whom and how that gets shared.

17:52Then we manage data sovereignty, not only where data is stored, but importantly, First Nations data sovereignty, because much of this is also supporting First Nations, you know, self-determination as well as community. Self-determination when you talk about, you know, decisions from the grassroots up, democratisation and data and evidence is critical as part of that. And then, of course, in our platform, we have a number of AI features, you would imagine, of course. And so AI assurance on top of that aligned to the voluntary guardrails and others. But what we've realised as well, and this is part of what we're launching this month, is that the ecosystem requires greater visibility, meaning governments or funders, investors, as well as corporates who are impacting social outcomes need to see through the ecosystem how they're reporting and going against those social impacts.

18:59And so Meteora helps governments track commitments. Meteora is the new platform. Yeah, it's the AI native platform. And it's really it's really come out of all of our years of experience working in this complex space where it helps governments track their commitments and link those commitments to outcomes data. Do governments think this is a good idea? Being tracked on commitments? We have two jurisdictions, state jurisdictions, doing test cases right now. I think that there's certainly a move toward greater transparency and that is what people and citizens want. And similarly governments want to see that, you know, the movement on outcomes rather than just activities and if their election commitments or if their commitments more broadly are actually progressing in the way that we want to see them progress.

19:56It's a little bit like the annual Closing the Gap report which is just a depressing story every year of no movement or backwards movement. And that's a really good example. So how can you actually see across those 17 outcome areas or targets where things are improving, which jurisdictions, but also which communities? And what are the things that we know that work to shift those outcomes? And that's what Meteora enables. Through connecting the data that aligns to those kinds of metrics and outcomes, You can also see the evidence of what might be working in New South Wales can inform learning and decision making in other jurisdictions or places.

20:42And so this is what it's about, understanding the whole ecosystem and then getting greater visibility to improve social impact. Yeah, I want to take that, pull the thread of the future, what the future looks like. We like to do a little game called Remember the Future. So pick a time frame, five months, six months, a year from now. let's say let's say a year from now because things are moving so fast a year from now you're back on the podcast so pretend it's 2027 i want you to speak in the present moment yeah what is seer data and analytics look like what does media are there's no wrong answers you can be as big as you want how are you changing and impacting yeah australia well we have a suite of applications that are architected, as I've said, across enabling sovereign technologies to be chosen within our applications.

21:30And all of our applications are driving toward greater transparency, improved outcomes and impact for Australian society. So whether that's at the grassroots with our communities platform, whether it's the ecosystem for Meteora, or we're also building a community intelligence platform that helps communities own all of their resources so that when consultation happens in communities, they can really drive where, you know, investment goes and the types of learnings that they want to share with others that are investing in those. And who's your biggest, most successful customer since we last saw you a year ago?

22:15Well, I mean, we have so many big customers now. We have Telstra and it's very exciting to be able to work with Telstra because, of course, they were one of our first and early investors through Mooraday. Mecca, we manage all of Mecca's social impact across. Oh, wow. Yeah. My daughter will be massively impressed when I talk about it. I know. I know. So is my daughter. And it being 2027, are you global now? And has that Australian club? Definitely global. In the UK, we've developed solutions that are specifically targeted to that context to enable place-based investment and to really support community-led decision-making over there because there's a different fragmented market.

23:04We have a huge number of distributors. So we've got a global distributor through Tech Data and TDCinex and then multiple different platforms integrating our application layer. So, you know, with tech today, you know, one of the key things is not only channel but distribution. So how well you can integrate your application layer into other big tech. And that's work that we're doing right now too. And one more, remember the future question, has your team grown? How big is your team from a year ago? It's interesting because the whole operating model has changed, right? We talked about this the other day, Julie, when we got to catch up, which is, you know, when we used to think we'd have to have a big development team, that's quite, that's changed a lot now.

23:52So we have more product people who have deep domain expertise and are building. But then because development's so fast, we really need to deepen and grow that. So the size of the team might have increased slightly, but the ratio of product to engineers has changed significantly. I want to ask you, because last week at the Best in Tech Awards, I talked about that conversation that founders should have with politicians and why it's important to engage and understand from someone else's perspective what's going on. and I talked about how empathy is a way into sort of being able to tackle disagreement and see other perspectives.

24:38What has surprised you in what has come out of the consultation that's been conducted using data in communities? Because often people have very set perspectives on how they're going to get through the task of consultation and they're very focused on their particular outcome and then something pops up out of nowhere that they weren't expecting. Yeah, I think it's a really good discussion. One of the, I mean, we work with ministers and politicians all the time because one of the key things is that it's very difficult for ministers or federal members to really get access to the data of what's happening in their electorate.

25:30And not-for-profits and those that we work with are giving them visibility of what's actually happening on the ground because they don't have that data. So it really helps. It's not only empathy. It's understanding the shared problem and how to overcome those issues together because the context differs depending on the service provision, you know, the availability, the population, the demographic needs, access needs, a whole range of considerations that differ by local community or electorate, right? And so when you start looking at a national or state level, you just can't see that granularity.

26:19And so when you're actually able to empower communities and that ecosystem of people and organisations that are working in communities to deliver on national priorities, you have to use data and evidence as a opportunity for shared learning and moving forward together. And I mean, And quite honestly, if that wasn't the case, it's very difficult for leaders to see what's happening. I think it's happening right in my building. There's notes in the elevator. They want to build a 23-story building across the street. The owners in my building are livid. And, you know, to have the consultation and it says that there haven't been any planning about the number of schools or resources and no money is being put forward to it.

27:03So it's almost like how can individuals have access to this to help, you know, inform the government and make that consultation? It just seems like it's. And so this application, this new application we're building right now with the community of Shepparton switches that around because there's what we would say is fatigue, consultation fatigue in communities. And there's also probably a lack of belief in the process. A lack of belief. And, you know, there was a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into this very issue and it reported like this way of doing it has to change. So what actually happens in your local community and also all over Australia is that every organization holds assets about what they've tried before, what's worked, evaluations, data sets, reports, qual, quant, you know, community story.

28:00if you can make that information more accessible through safe governance with a natural language layer on top of that which is what our application is community owns all of its knowledge and then it says well if you want to come into our community and do consultation this is where you have to go first this is what we want this is what has worked this is what is our shared learning and you know Well, hey, AI is a great application for that so long as there's governance, security, AI assurance, and importantly, especially if you're working in some communities around Australia where there's governance and leadership from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, First Nations, data sovereignty and governance as well.

28:47How do you deal with any bias in knowing that the data that it's been trained on is correct? Well, I mean, effectively that comes down to AI assurance. And so, you know, the Australian government has published the guardrails for safe standards for AI assurance. There's 10 guardrails. And then you have to effectively be implementing those and testing against those guardrails, which comes to the next kind of element of what the future looks like, which is, you know, testing is not only testing for development, is the product working as we thought it would, user testing, et cetera. There's also AI assurance testing that is a new layer on developing product.

29:36And, you know, we hear from government all the time because they're one of our major customers that just as we have cyber teams, we'll have AI assurance teams. And that is another layer that any AI tech company has to have and new roles are evolving all the time. So speaking of where is your human in the loop? Where are the humans in all of that you're working? Yeah. So, I mean, effectively, when you use Meteora or Sear Communities, what the product is doing is letting you know if it's used AI, it's flagging it. it's giving you an alert and then it's saying you need to check this here's the evidence this is where we've sourced this information from are you happy with this please check it and um yeah i think you know because we've built with the standards in place not only the 42 000 series which is the iso iec 42 000 series for safe and ethical use of ai also the voluntary guardrails which are going to be mandatory soon in Australia anyway.

30:42Because we've built from those from the get-go, we've really built into the product AI assurance. But that doesn't mean to say that we can't be testing with the humans to ensure our AI assurance is implemented as intended. To make sure those stories have empathy and compassion. Yeah. I'm going to whack the handbrake on and slide sideways. Okay. Absolutely head off in a different direction. Excellent. Humans of Purpose. Yeah. Tell me about it because you're a massive fan. Humans of Purpose was founded by a really wonderful friend of mine, Melanie Greblo from 20 years ago. I've known her for that long.

31:25And what her goal is to establish a pathway for women leaving family violence situations to reskill into digital and data roles. And she has a business that employs those people and does digital skills as well. So our partnership with Humans of Purpose is to skill up the women that are coming through her academy in data skills. um they come so they they do training on place-based community data work we've developed all of this online training they come to us for um paid work experience and then they go into paid secondments and then into full-time work so that's the pathway yeah it's really cool uh it's exciting because on one hand there is a huge need for community data analysts um based on you know what we're talking about this sort of grassroots movement toward community-led decision making with data at the center and let's even think about the work the government's trying to put into addressing domestic violence right now and exactly exactly and you know we're really excited because a number of those women that have gone through this pathway which we were testing uh have gone on to full-time employment now which is uh really exciting fantastic and i'm going to go way back because i want to talk books um because i'm a massive stellar prize fan oh yeah and uh you know some of my favorite books i've just finished reading heather rose's latest one a great act of love so i think she won it for museum of modern love many years ago Yes.

33:06But tell us about your reading habits. I know you were on the board for a while. Did you get to go through the long list and then the short list? I would usually, well, it's always a matter of time. Yeah, exactly. And I moved from reading physical books into listening, which I think many of us have, but now I'm back into reading physical books, which is great. And I'm back reading fiction again. I went through a real phase of reading non-fiction. A lot of the Stella Prize finalists have been non-fiction books, which has been brilliant. But now I'm back reading fiction. And I think, you know, the Stella Prize has obviously transformed.

33:50Just to explain for our listeners what the Stella Prize is, I'll let you do that. Yeah. So it was established to spotlight female writers and to create a prize that would run alongside the Miles Franklin to sort of support female-led writing in all kinds of genres because effectively, you know, the founders of Stella realised that the Miles Franklin was not surfacing female writers and it's called Stella because many people may not know that Stella Miles Franklin was female. um great Netflix series on at the moment uh if you're interested too in my brilliant career oh yeah thoroughly enjoying that um so what kind of what kind of fiction books are you diving into I mean I've had that's it I had Ted Brose on one side uh going through that adventure uh and then Heather on the other and I'm I'm just thinking about because the Jaguar was a year or That's a poetry book.

34:59Did you read that? Yes. I'm a massive poetry person and Evelyn Arrowellen, her works as well. But there have been so many good ones. And then Jess Hill, I think, See What You Made Me Do. Yeah, critically important book. Yeah. Like a groundbreaking book. Yeah, so it's interesting you say that because I was really only now just delving back into fiction and thinking what do I like? and I think now it's like what's a quick read, what's an easy light read and there's a lot of brilliant fiction at the moment. I've just started reading a book, actually a love story. Wait, not just a founder, she is the mum of three kids and a puppy.

35:45Yeah. It's great to see them doing the things that they want to do but needless to say they're not taking the tech founder route. Well, I want to ask then in that context though, what do you think they've learnt from mum? watching her work and build over the past decade. Oh, I know that they've learnt, you know that, hard work, resilience, determination, problem solving, communication, care, you know. I think being a founder, it's the long middle and you have to continue moving. You get great breakthroughs but in this kind of environment especially, have to really have smarts and keep moving forward because, you know, there's so much change happening.

36:34And I think that's what the kids have. And colouring outside the lines, that phrase just keeps coming to me. I know that the kids, you know, they're not just the same as cookie cutter. You know, being an entrepreneur, you're not necessarily a cookie cutter. And without wanting to embarrass them, are there moments where you see them do something and think, oh, it did sink in after all? Yeah, I think so. I think that on one hand, they're just very kind of empathetic, grateful people. They've seen, you know, the hard work that is required in building a company that many founders would be living through right now.

37:13It's 24 by 7 a lot of the time. And then on the other hand, I've seen them choose things that, you know, work that brings them joy. And, you know, they're sort of saying, I don't know if that's really for me, mum. I'm quite happy to be a chef or, you know, work in hospitality. So that's good for them. They're following what they want to do. And how did you manage that, raising them, especially through that teen HSC IB years? Yeah. Because you were busy being a founder and a parent. Yes, a lot of work. Yeah. I had a lot of help from people that supported me, you know, like neighbours and friends and community members.

37:55I didn't have family here. And also I raised them solo as well, so it was a big effort. I think that really, you know, they had to, you know, you get good at bringing in all the resources and people and support that you need. Finding your tribe. Yeah, exactly. I was really lucky to have that and we still have those people around us. Like, you know, the kid's nanny is still very close with us after 15 years. So those kinds of things. But at the same time, you know, they did have to sacrifice a lot. They didn't have me at everything that they wanted me to be at. They had to be quite independent, problem solving themselves, those kinds of things.

38:40I also want to, I notice something about you all the time is you have belief in yourself. And I think the kids notice that you have belief. This can be done. I can do it. Oh, there's a road bump. I'm going to get around it. I'm going to do this. So I think them seeing you having that belief, this is an assumption, something that I notice is, is really important. Yeah, I think, well, that's true. I think there's always problems to be solved. And if you take the mindset that you can, you'll solve it. you've got the resources and the people, the smarts around you to solve it. It's quite hard, but still you can do it.

39:13And the kids take that attitude as well. I think the other thing I know given that we've worked, I've worked in social impact and for-purpose sectors for so long, is that they need to contribute constructively. You know, it's not just about them, but how they contribute will be a constructive force. So one of my favorite questions, talking about road bumps or fuck-ups or failures or mistakes, whatever level of word you want, what is a flurning that you have, this is a MEC word, a failure that you learned from? Yeah, I mean, I think that there's so many. Great. There's so many. I think that, you know, one of the challenges with being a founder that has belief in themselves and a vision is that operationalising that vision requires certain people at certain times with different skill sets and different capabilities and whatnot.

40:21And so sometimes I've hired people in that were perhaps too early or had deeper expertise than what we needed at the right time. So it's really often about sequencing, you know, who is the right kind of person at this moment in time. And that has been, I guess, some of the big learning. Learning from humans, yeah. Do you have one that you're most proud of, one of your failings that you're most proud of? I suppose, you know, starting off trying to enter the US was a good insight into what it will take to really do it properly. And, you know, the UK now is a really solid foundation through partners and channel and just really understanding the market and where you fit and how to go to market rather than, you know, perhaps what was previously attempted.

41:26Well, can we unpack that a little bit? Because I think most founders when they see US just go, Tam, look at the Tam. Yeah. It's a bit more than that. It certainly is. I mean it's micro neighbourhoods, we'll say, or micro centers, isn't it? And it's so vast. So you have to have a really deep contextual understanding of how you're going to enter those micro. It's cultural also. It's cultural also. It's very different how investors and people see and the pace and the level of risk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas in the UK, we've figured out and working with partners to carefully map the best way to enter the market where we can really add a lot of value, especially with our experience, our track record, the proof points from here in Australia.

42:30and culturally I think it is different so you can't make the assumption that it's not but um yeah that I think that's been a good learning well it sounds like though even going into different micro communities in Australia you probably just have here's some things that I need to learn about each of them the culture the operating you know was that helpful in in expanding outside of Australia completely absolutely because it's always about people as well right um and what is going to be adopted what people want and need how that's organized um in order to make the most impact the meta questions are going to the answers are going to be different in different countries i think so yeah and it comes down to trust as well how do you build trust uh well i mean trust is built into the technology which we've talked a lot about but also trust is about you know people to people stuff can we work together do we have alignment are we the right kind of organization that can partner together and being really upfront about that and I think that more and more those conversations are very easy because most technology businesses and organizations or consultants working together all realize that there's so much work to be done and we have to work together so let's just get it out on the table straight away and I'm excited about that there's a great culture of transparency um because I think you know if you look macro there's so much complexity there's so much to be done and we start those conversations with we'd love to partner with you but if it's not a fit that's fine this is what we're doing we're open this is where we think we can add value this is how we operate and we meet together and we go great let's get it done or not yeah I was going to ask that so on the trust part have you ever fired a customer or chose not to like found that you didn't you couldn't work together because I think that's important for entrepreneurs to know we've certainly um taken on projects where we were building new features for example and we realized that it wasn't a good fit in terms of our customers' operating model and our way of working.

44:50So that was good learning. When you say our way of working, are we talking about systems or are we talking about culture? Culture. Yeah. Systems is relatively easy to solve, right? Yeah. That's easy. It's culture generally. So talk a little bit about the SEER culture. What is it you build for the team, with the team? very flat, fair, equitable, open and honest communication, problem solving focus, always a problem solving focus to your point earlier, you know, because when we're working on really complex issues, you have to have that problem solving mindset where we're working together from different disciplines to sort of bring everything to the table with our customers and with our partners.

45:37And I think, you know, once you have that mindset, it makes it quite, you know, not easy but enjoyable. Building the trust. Yeah, transparency. I want to unpack trust a little bit more because I think we're in deficit at the moment. Yeah. You could say it's one of those areas where we're in a recession on trust and you only have to look at what's been going on with the Frontier Labs which were trusters, trusters, trusters right up until the weekend where it's like going, ah! And everyone's now trying to sort of read the tea leaves on why you're suddenly saying and doing this and unpacking motives.

46:26How do, going back to what Julie was asking, do we build trust across countries and institutions? Because there's also still a lot of people in the middle who are going, who do I trust? How can I trust them? Yeah. The trust deficit amplified through not only in the political landscape and those kinds of things but through technology and through, well, big tech potentially is a really serious problem. so how we think about it because trust is everything you know for what we do especially but it should be for any business um first of all we talked a lot about those foundations for the tech so it's trust by design um to ensure our technology is safe secure responsible ai safety and we were just shortlisted for the Australian AI Awards for best application for responsible AI.

47:32So anyway, you build all of that trust into the tech but then it's how you operate as an organisation and your team, open, honest, transparency where possible and with with our customers being really meeting them where they're at as well because you can imagine we have such a spectrum of customer types not only their data capability but the problems they're trying to solve and that is a big complexity as well so from a from a principal's perspective always meeting people where they're at. So in one community, they'll be very new to data and evidence. And so how do we support people to feel safe and go on that journey with us?

48:22And safety is all about making sure people get their arms around like what we're talking about, how they can use it to improve outcomes in their community. And then on the other hand, it's, you know, we're working with federal and state government policymakers, ministers' officers. We're working with senior leaders in corporate. And so really understanding their context and meeting them where they're at and what they need to achieve in order to kind of get visibility across the system that they need to get visibility over. You know, and that's pretty important. We are a trusted organisation and that is something that I think we certainly don't take lightly.

49:14We're really careful about how we operationalise that. So it's cultural but it's also systems and processes and how we do our work. And the one thing I want to pick up on people changing their minds is there's nothing wrong with that. If we're learning, we always should be evolving our position. How do you tackle that a moment where, okay, team, I know we said we're going in this direction, but really after I've looked at all the evidence, I've decided we need to go this way. Yeah, because this happens all the time. Yeah. Especially in today's world, right? Like you're running a technology company with a completely different operating model now and yet, And we have that complexity of clients and customers.

49:56So I think, you know, you have to be transparent. You have to learn together. You have to have ways of learning and openness. Adaptability. You have to, yeah. And similarly, you have to have a learning culture with clients. And data and evidence can help with that. And our products help with that a lot. But it's the mindset and our way of working as well. As Julie knows, though, I can often be wrong. and I tend to try and step up as quickly as possible and say, yes, I was, and here's what I've learnt from it. Is that your process? What is, how do you sort of say, articulate that, yeah, it's the direction we had is in the opposite, where we're going now?

50:42With our team and the board? Yeah, any chunk, their stakeholders, the works. Yeah, well, we say our hypothesis was this. We were tracking on this. This is what we've learned. We're tracking here now. The biggest example is changing our operating model, you know, where we had a team of engineers, one product person, delivery team. Now that's changed. We have really found a development partner who can do high-quality, fast, secure coding. and now our operating model is different. So we don't have as many engineers anymore. We have more, you know, need to focus more on product people and delivery people that work with our clients and implement the product.

51:34So they're both tech and human experts. Yeah. They're building the relationship. And I think that's, you know, now if you're an engineer, you have to have product and communication. and human skills empathy human skills and if you are working in product you have to have engineering and development and design skills as well so there's this sort of blending of the roles and the operating model is is completely different than what it was perhaps yeah certainly eight months ago gosh that quick and now what's happening with tell us more about meteora uh the name where you came up with it how it can follow you what the launch is all about yeah so meteora meteor is means to measure in in latin the a is female founded through the female perspective perhaps because it is a solution for ecosystems across to improve outcomes.

52:44It's launching on the 21st of October. The Assistant Minister Andrew Charlton is launching it and we have a number of New South Wales government policymakers and a number of our clients. So we've got already eight customers in closed beta, all different types of use cases, from measuring outcomes in a policy context through to commitment tracking from a government perspective and social impact, philanthropy, capital markets who are, you know, measuring the impact of their investments as well as the financial returns. So it is a very vast and broad application across multiple different customers.

53:28for this and we're launching as we, you know, out into Europe at the same time. So to that last question you were talking about, you have those eight beta customers, what have you learned? How have you changed or shifted, pivoted from those beta customers? Yeah, I mean what we're really learning is what our customers need to surface through the use of data and evidence, what questions they'll ask, how they're going to use it, who gets access to what.

54:08So watch this space. Okay. And how do you love up on your customers? When I'm working with – Love up. Love up. Like how do you make them real – the customer success, I'm using a different word. How do you really take care of them? Because I see a lot of times that companies who are building, they forget that there's a customer there and they're all about the product and chasing the dollars. What are some of the things that you do? With Meteora, we've got a really strong customer base of supporters. So with Meteora, we had a customer advisory group that was 30 customers involved in the design and then around 150 to 200 people who have given us feedback through the whole concept testing, feature UX testing, and now eight closed beta customers.

54:54And that is really exciting. That will continue to grow so we understand more about what we're offering to different customer types, different organisations, and how to, you know, refine the product for their specific use case. Trust them and their feedback because it's not like your mom's saying, oh, it's great, we love it. No, well, I mean I feel like in what we've been able to, where we're privileged is that our customers and our partners all are bought into what we're trying to do together. We're trying to change the world. Good. And it's complex. So they've all bought in and they are generous with their time, their efforts and the insights they give us and, you know, the use of the platforms and, yeah.

55:51I did comment the other night that shitposting memes about politicians on social media is not political engagement. I want to ask you what have you learnt and what has surprised you about your engagement with politicians and the political process? What was something you hadn't thought about before that suddenly was, Oh, I see now how the sausage is made. Yeah, one of the big insights through the design of Meteora was, you know, how difficult it is for ministers and ministers' offices to see what's happening. whether the commitments that have been made are actually able to be implemented across whole of government, where they might be blocked and how it's currently done, which might be on an Excel spreadsheet or a Word document.

57:00Or a whiteboard. And so how important this role of technology in Meteora can be to improve visibility, transparency and also decision making to align with what really matters to people, which goes to your point of trust. Yeah. Yeah. So I think this, what we've built here is, can be really powerful for what Victor Dominello says is Gov3. transparent, outcomes-oriented, and secure and safe use of technology for government. Do you want to ask the main question? Ask the Simon question? Yeah. Yeah. My Simon's question, which I love when he asks, is what brings you joy? Oh, I love playing tennis. Woo-hoo.

57:52Yeah. And so that's my main outlet. I don't play very well. but that brings me a lot of joy. I got to go to the French Open this year so that was really fun. Oh, wow. That's a massive dub. Yeah, it was really good. Chrissy, it was great to have you on Startup360. Thank you so much for joining us from SEER Data Analytics and look forward to Meteora. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. Absolute pleasure. Well, how's the packing going? Have you got a plan? It's a plan I feel like a squirrel on crack with a bad case of ADHD the way I'm packing. But I'll get it done. I would love to see that cartoon.

58:37It's amazing. I would go to see that movie. Squirrel on crack with ADHD. And we don't have squirrels in Australia. No, this is why it would be exotic for us. Yeah. And exhausting for me. You could say wombat on crack. It's fine. Yeah, but I'm an American. Possum. Quokka. Drop bear. Drop bear. Drop bear. with ADHD. And I'm prepping for, again, to work with the comics for startup stand-up. I got to work with them. I'm so looking forward to this. This week, there's still some tickets left. Get your tickets. 14th of October at the Comedy Store. The comedians who are VCs and angels and founders, really working well together.

59:18That very famous LinkedIn influencer, Ryan Ong, is one of the mindsets. He is one of them. And the other ones are going to, they're just all going to blow your mind. It's a great group. We did a lot of fun. Played some games, did some improv, and they were great. Fantastic. Well, I am off tonight to see the Swans men's team. Hopefully make it into the grand final at the SCG. They're playing Frio. We'll see. On the weekend, the Swans women's, congrats to them. Record crowd of 7 ,300 at Henson Park. Beautiful day. And they absolutely knocked it out of the park. So that was pretty exciting. We'll have to go to a game with you.

59:53I am. Yes, everyone. I have any time anyone wants to come along, they can come as my guest. You should come too. Bring the fam. It's a wonderful day there. It is so much fun. But that's it for this week. So Stand Up 360 is a private media production produced and edited by the fantastic Matt Jackson. Thank you so much, mate. And also supported by Deal. We appreciate that. Thanks to Ella and to James. Don't forget you can subscribe and watch on Spotify. YouTube and Apple and startupdaily.net, that little website that I spend a bit of my time working on. Of course, we've got all the stories about the best in tech winners up there this week.

1:00:36So have a look at those. Again, congrats to Heidi Health, amazing AI company, doing such a great job, to SightHive, to Paz, to so many amazing people. All right, you have a great weekend. We'll see you next Friday. Bye for now.