Advertise on podcast: Startup 360

How do you scale healthcare without losing the humans at its core? Startup 360’s guest this week, Dr Simon Kos, unpacks that challenge and how his goal to achieve that has shaped his career as a founder, CEO, Microsoft exec and now chief Medical Officer at Australian AI unicorn Heidi Health. Simon's career as a doctor began in critical care, where teamwork, information and decisions can mean life or death. He decided to focus on digital health because helping one patient at a time wasn't enough. He knew impact came with scale. It’s a conversation about learning where you fit in and knowing when it’s time to hand over the baton. Simon reflects on leaving Microsoft, becoming a CEO just before Covid, discovering the difference between a "peacetime" and "wartime" startup leader, and recognising when the cost of work cost is too high a price paid by family. He also explains for founders how a freemium model accelerated Heidi's growth, navigating lengthy hospital sales cycles, and making decisions in a tightly regulated industry. AI can help solve problems, but for Simon, it's about using it to restore human connection, not replace it. A final note - this conversation was recorded before Heidi held an all-hands announcing a restructure that will see 18% of its team, more than 100 people, made redundant, along with two of the three cofounders departing. Dr Simon remains as CMO. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

Beauty can be frivolous, intimate, commercial and deeply tied to dignity.Simon and Julie sit down with Assyrian-Australian writer, creator and founder Minnie Isaac, the force behind White Rabbit Social and personalised skincare platform dewwie.com, for episode 81. Minnie traces a path from debilitating endometriosis and adult acne to building an online community grounded in honesty, accessibility and practical support. She explains why self-neutrality can be more useful than forced self-love, how asking one knowledgeable friend turned a $50 content quote into $450, and how “walkaway power” helps founders negotiate without shrinking themselves. Minnie, on the recent performers at Startup Standup, also shares the candid lessons from setting out to do the right thing at White Rabbit Social by paying contributors generously before the business model could sustain it, and offers a useful operating philosophy: keep stumbling upwards, falling a little further forward each time. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

What can startup founders teach philanthropy, and what can philanthropy teach founders? On episode 80 of Startup 360, Forever Projects founder Mark Dombkins explores how entrepreneurial thinking can create lasting social impact without losing sight of dignity, trust and the people at the centre of the problem. Mark’s journey runs from teaching in Tanzania and adopting three children there, to building a nonprofit that helps women create sustainable incomes, nourish their babies and keep families together. Simon and Julie talk to Mark about philanthropy as investment, backing local experts rather than arriving with answers, measuring impact, removing the friction that stops people giving and why nonprofits still need to understand their “customers”. There’s also Kilimanjaro, founder expeditions, a catastrophic Honda CR-V adventure and the man who helps while carrying a goose.Mark’s lessons are to start with what’s already in your hands and take small actions. Most importantly, you’ll discover how helping transform someone else can transform you too. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

What does good leadership look like when you stop pretending anyone has it all figured out? Simon and Julie sit down with entrepreneur, storyteller and Mentor Walks cofounder Bobbi Mahlab for episode 79 of Startup 360, talking about careers, community, judgement and the value of being a little messy. Bobbi shares how a chance mentoring walk in Shanghai became a global movement that has connected 18,000 women across 19 cities, and why careers are better understood as lattices than ladders. She also gets candid about founder mistakes: diversifying too early, compromising on the wrong hire and learning that sometimes the most important part of a difficult decision is not what you do, but how you do it. From embracing AI without surrendering judgement to building sustainable social-impact organisations, Bobbi’s philosophy - and her philanthropy - is grounded in curiosity, contribution and human connection. And perhaps the biggest lesson? Stop measuring your life against someone else’s scoreboard. Define success for yourself, and help others along the way. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

On episode 78 of the weekly Startup 360 podcast, Susan Toft joins us to unpack how a government redundancy, a toddler and a mountain of washing became The Laundry Lady, the Queensland scaleup that’s now an international marketplace with more than 600 laundry partners. Susan takes us through the unglamorous reality of scaling: bootstrapping with off-the-shelf technology, building a platform only once the business demanded it, learning to pitch investors, and discovering that the right capital matters as much as the cheque. We also get the inside story on Shark Tank, where a national TV appearance became marketing gold, plus Susan’s lessons on brand, visibility and why founders can’t afford to treat marketing as an afterthought. Underneath is a founder story about motherhood, flexibility, resilience and building a business around the life you actually want. The Sunshine Coast mother of two teenage boys offers practical, funny and refreshingly grounded advice about solving a simple problem well, then having the nerve to scale it. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

On episode 77 of Startup 360, we’re talking about storytelling, influence, AI, parenthood and the increasingly important business of staying human with Ranya Alkadamani, founder of Impact Group International. Ranya worked for Kevin Rudd when he was foreign minister, in a career that also spans media, international affairs, intelligence and communications. That’s given her a rare view of what happens when ideas meet institutions, politics and the people they’re supposed to serve. For founders, there’s plenty to unpack. Simon and Julie get into why relationships with government should start long before you need something, why great products can still fail the “so what?” test, and why founders need to understand not just what they’re building, but how the people outside their bubble will experience it. That’s especially relevant when the conversation turns to AI. Alongside enormous opportunity, there’s also growing anxiety about what gets automated, what skills we risk losing, and whether efficiency translates into progress. Ranya also talks candidly about motherhood, identity and discovering that success and capability in one part of life don’t necessarily prepare you for another. She had post natal depression after her first child and shares how that shaped her thinking about the world and the way forward. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

In this special edition of Startup 360, we revisit four conversations about the decisions, doubts and relationships behind building a business -the parts founders often leave out of the story. Mark ‘Z’ Zmarzly, head of startups at Morfless, shares the loneliness of his journey, a cofounder breakup that almost ended the business, and how he won a paying customer before the product existed. He also explains why a basketball court can reveal more about someone than a networking event. Tech Ready Women’s Renate Crollini explores the courage to back yourself, the honesty to recognise when something isn’t working, and the challenge of sorting useful advice from mentor whiplash. Knowing when to stop matters as much as knowing when to start. Posca cofounder Ed Stening admits he should have listened when a teammate questioned the packaging. His lessons in understanding customers come with an honest account of family life, financial sacrifice and children who aren’t afraid to tell Dad what they think. And Emma Earley from 1000 Women in AI, winner of the GSD Award at the Startup Daily Best in Tech awards, reflects on closing a startup, building differently next time, and resisting the pressure to put AI ahead of people. Her thoughts on curiosity, motherhood and rediscovering joy bring the conversation back to what all that ambition is meant to serve. Together, these conversations explore how to build with conviction without becoming deaf to feedback, ask for help without surrendering your judgement, and make room for life beyond the business. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

We know data is powerful. But there are important questions around who owns it, who can access it, and who gets to make decisions with it? This week, on episode 75 of Startup 360, Julie and Simon sit down with Kristi Mansfield, philanthropist, community advocate, and founder and CEO of 10-year-old Seer Data & Analytics, to unpack how data, AI and better infrastructure can shift power closer to everyday people, not just those who can afford it. Seer works with governments and organisations here and globally to help everyone turn fragmented information into evidence to guide investment, measure impact and improve local decision-making. Kristi also introduces Meteora, Seer’s new AI-native platform built to connect commitments with outcomes and give governments, funders and organisations a clearer view of whether change is actually happening. The conversation gets into the hard stuff too: data governance, sovereign AI, responsible technology, trust and why moving fast isn’t enough when you’re working with sensitive information and complex social problems. Kristi also opens up about her founder journey, from hiring ahead of the company’s needs to lessons from trying to enter the US market, reshaping Seer’s operating model and learning how to build international growth through the right partners and channels. There’s also a powerful look at Humans of Purpose and its work creating pathways into data careers for women leaving family violence. This conversation is about building technology with consequence. And about what Kristi calls “the long middle” of entrepreneurship: staying adaptable, solving the next problem and keeping the vision moving forward. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

“Regret got me into running” is an unusual reason to become a triathlete, but then Jason Dunn, the author of Greatness Doesn’t Care, has taken an unusual career path since he dreamed of being a soccer player growing up in England. Jason, who now helps entrepreneurs build resilience, discipline and purpose on their path to success joined Simon and Julie on the couch for episode 74 of Startup 360 this week. Growing up in the UK, Jason lived and breathed football, playing four games a week as a teen. He was offered a pathway to becoming a pro footballer, but took a different one that lead to wealth management and now asks: what keeps you moving when your life doesn’t follow the path you once pictured? When he agreed to be part of a corporate triathlon team, he didn’t even know there was a swimming leg - he was hydrophobic, and in his mid 30s, didn’t know how to swim. Training meant cutting back on the ciggies, and a few jogs, but now he had to face his demons. Now he’s completed 14 Ironman triathlons and made the cut for the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. Jason’s story is an invitation to think about your own relationship with ambition and purpose and how you tackle life..It’s a conversation that begins with football and running and then dives into the motivation behind a founder’s mindset. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

On episode 73 of Startup 360, Simon and Julie sit down with Ian Gardiner, cofounder of Innovation Bay, investor, entrepreneur and champion of founder communities. Ian reflects on his journey from Glasgow to Australia, his life with his wife Andread, founder of Jelix Ventures, the dot-com boom, building Viacorp, and the lessons that came from growing a company without the kind of founder peer networks that exist today. That experience helped shape his belief that community isn’t a nice-to-have for founders, it's critical infrastructure. The conversation explores the power of peer groups such as YPO Forum, where founders can drop their mask, share challenges they can’t always discuss with staff, investors or family, and learn from people who have been through similar experiences. Ian also makes the case for human connection in an increasingly AI-driven world. While it can make founders more productive and even provide useful coaching, he argues there are limits to what it can understand about pressure, fear, accountability and the reality of building something difficult. It can take you so far, but only a human can get you to 100%. They also dig into Australia’s startup investment climate, why he sees angel activity as a useful barometer for market confidence, and how the rise of AI is changing startup defensibility. Ian also shares why being “tenacious and sticky” is both a founder superpower and a potential weakness, what he looks for in great founders, and why his simplest advice for building a network is still the most effective: get out, meet people and find your tribe. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced this week by Alex Harrod and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

This week on Startup 360, Majella Campbell returns to the host’s chair in Simon’s place, alongside Julie Trell, to unpack a huge week in Australian venture capital before sitting down with urban designer, serial founder and author Lucinda Hartley. Lucinda has spent her career exploring how the places we live shape the lives we lead. From cofounding CoDesign Studio and Neighbourlytics to her latest venture, Zeroo Home Loans, she has combined data, design and a deeply human lens to tackle some of Australia’s biggest urban challenges. The conversation dives into Australia’s housing affordability crisis and why Lucinda believes we need to rethink the traditional “Great Australian Dream”. She explains how Zeroo’s zero-deposit home loan model aims to help people with strong incomes but no deposit enter the property market, while using data to help buyers choose homes with strong long-term potential. Lucinda also shares some powerful lessons from her founder journey: why customer enthusiasm isn’t the same as willingness to pay, the dangers of tying your identity too closely to your company, and how understanding your own blind spots can make you a better leader. There’s also a fascinating discussion about AI and design. Lucinda warns that AI-generated work can appear so polished that we mistake it for finished thinking — making critical thinking and human judgment more important, not less. As she explains in episode 72, whether we’re building cities, companies or technology, the human stuff still matters most. And best of luck from the Startup 360 team to Lucinda as she runs the 42km Sydney Marathon this Sunday. We hope it brings you great joy. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

Matt Jones describes himself as a creative strategist, accidental entrepreneur and serial failure. As his career pinballed between military intelligence, political speechwriting, brand strategy and co-founding Four Pillars Gin, he developed a theory about how people make decisions and why story matters. Matt, now founder of Think Story Experience, host of the StoryWork podcast and Startup Daily contributor, sat down with Julie and Simon for episode 71 of Startup 360 to explain how working in UK politics gave him an early lesson in human behaviour: people rarely make decisions based purely on facts. Identity, emotion and belonging matter. That insight shaped how he thinks about brands and building businesses. Storytelling is just part of the equation. The bigger challenge is creating a narrative - a shared worldview for founders, teams, customers and investors on where a startup is going and why. As he puts it, the challenge “isn’t about the story you tell. It’s about the story that you make true”. Four Pillars became a proving ground for those ideas. It wasn’t about MVP - they went “maximal”: exceptional gin, custom bottles, striking labels, and the absolute belief that Australia could make some of the world’s best gin using local flavours. They also built a deliberate growth story, from a $30,000 crowdfunding campaign, to $35 million in revenue in less than a decade. And knowing what to hold onto and what to change is, Matt found, one of the hardest parts of growth. Now, through his Storywork podcast and advisory work, he wants leaders to see story as strategy owned by the CEO, not handed to marketing. It’s not that the strongest businesses tell better stories. The trick is to build something worth talking about. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

What happens when a teacher, criminologist, sociologist and self-described geek - yes, that’s all one person - turns her attention to one of the biggest threats we all face: scams? Episode 70 of Startup 360, sees Simon and Julie “TreLLM” sit down with Lively founder Stacey Edmonds, creator of gamified school and business scam education sites  Dodgy or Not, and Phishy or Not, to explore how social engineering, scams and generative AI are changing how we need to think about cyber safety. Stacey’s early career in teaching, youth work and criminology shaped a different approach to cyber education: replacing the old skool punishment for wrong answers in box ticking exercises with critical-thinking skills and “digital instincts” to recognise online manipulation. The conversation ranges from industrialised cybercrime and “ransomware-as-a-service” to romance scams, and sextortion, which has its own 170-page How To manual. Stacey explains why scammers, marketers and behavioural scientists often rely on the same fundamental principles of influence — and how genAI has dramatically lowered the skill and research required to target individuals. For founders, the message is clear: AI speed cannot replace governance. And shipping a product is not the same as building a sustainable business. There’s also a remarkably simple defence against increasingly sophisticated scams: pause. Slowing down, questioning the pressure and recognising the tactics being used against us may be one of our most valuable digital skills in the AI era today. You can also catch Stacey at the Startup Standup comedy night in Sydney on October 14. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free.

Merrick Watts is a comedy legend. But he also has a serious side as a startup founder as Ed Stening discovered when he became his cofounder in drink brand Posca. And it turns out resurrecting a 2000-year-old Roman sports drink is no joke.Ed is this week’s guest on episode 69 of Startup 360, talking about building a brand in a competitive category, and moving from corporate to founder life. Posca began when Merrick discovered the vinegar-based hydration drink while researching his wine show. The Romans used it to make questionable water safer, keep soldiers sharp and, presumably, help the plebs recover from a hard night at the Colosseum. Merrick first pitched the idea to Lion Nathan, where Ed was GM. He ultimately said no, but offered some business advice to the funnyman-turned-founder. Nine months later Merrick called back, having done everything Ed suggested, and asked him to quit his corporate job and become cofounder. Ed initially said no once again. But now in his mid-40s, he realised the bigger risk was spending the rest of his life wondering what might have happened. Three years later, he’s in the startup trenches selling what Posca now calls a “hydration soda” — after discovering that consumers struggled to compute a fizzy sports drink in a can. That “flearning” - learnings from failure - is one of several brutally honest lessons in this week’s Startup 360. Ed talks about why founders need complementary cofounders, why startups and corporates misunderstand each other, how AI has become the assistant his business can’t afford, making his family part of his startup life, and why good ideas need market tailwinds rather than heroic founders battling a cyclone. Most of all, he explains the drive behind taking the leap. “If I don’t make this the best I f*****g can,” he says, “then why was I here in the first place?” Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free

AI has a cowboy problem. When not bragging on LinkedIn about their work being done while asleep, they’re writing AI cheques they can’t cash - without pausing to ask whose data they’re feeding into the machine, what it’s being used for, or who was duffed along the way. Episode 68 of Startup 360 talks to Emma Earley, the founder of 1000 Women in AI, a free AI upskilling program and community for women and non-binary people - and a finalist in the GSD category of the Startup Daily Best in Tech awards. Emma calls herself an AI “de-influencer”. She’s an AI fan, but anti-hype, anti-slop and warns against putting your brain in a jar, leaving the LLM to do the thinking. Emma earned the right to be wary. Her previous HR tech startup, Hello Canopy, was part of the “SaaS-pocalypse. The founder lesson was brutal but useful: persistence matters, but so does the humility to recognise when the market has moved and the signals are telling you something your ego does not want to hear. Then, while heavily pregnant, she turned her frustration with a widening gender gap in AI into 1,000 Women in AI. She hoped to attract 1,000 people in 6-12 months. It took two weeks. Now, more than 2,000 have signed up. Oh, and she has an 8-week old baby, her second child.The free course begins with a question the cowboys tend to skip: should AI be used here at all? Emma joins Julie and Simon to talk founder failure, responsible AI, why women using the technology are still judged differently to men, and why play curiosity and psychological safety matter more than another corporate transformation program. Her plea is straightforward: AI should be a thinking partner, not thinking for us. Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free