Build It. They'll Come‪.‬ Helen Dalley

Not every budding entrepreneur wants to start a new bank.  Banking is risky, highly regulated, and in this country dominated by the big 4 banks that could squash any little minnow that tries to challenge them. But my guest Joseph Healy has been a career banker, in fact a successful senior executive in 2 of those the big traditional banks, and his disillusionment with their modus operandi led him to start his own. After extensive chats with mate David Hornery, over beers at the local on a Friday, the pair decided on a vision for a new bank to service small to medium sized businesses, a neglected sector in their opinion. So they set out to back themselves into building that vision into something successful and sustainable.  

Healy and Hornery founded Judo Bank in 2019, in the eye of the Covid storm. But they say that made the bank stronger, and they claim to have delivered what they promised for small to medium-sized businesses.

Now a higher interest rate environment produces new challenges for the minnow bank. Despite its shares being marked down,  Judo’s lending book is now $9bill (as of June 30, 2023), and it achieved a strong 2023 profit. And Joseph Healy reckons they are building the culture, mind-set and model to ensure Judo grows into a sustainable success.
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Soldier-turned-entrepreneur Mark Woodland reckons he learned some tough lessons in the Army. The most fundamental that he brought with him into the startup world was how to be resilient. This self-confessed university dropout draws on his internal resilience he reckons every day, while scaling up his Kismet healthcare platform. Resilience, coupled with setting in stone the internal culture of your business right from the get-go, and staying humble are foundation stones for Kismet’s success.
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Serially successful entrepreneur Mark Woodland, co-created and built the Kismet platform to provide digital tools to help NDIS participants easily link up with approved providers, hopefully reducing fraud and overcharging & improving compliance along the way. Kismet only began life as a business in August 2022, after Mark had kept the idea in his bottom drawer for 13 years, but in early 2023 it raised a whopping $4million from venture capital veterans AirTree Ventures, Daniel Petre AO and others, an enormous tick of approval for Mark Woodland, a former soldier and proud product of a single mum household.Then again, Mark had already built substantial childcare business, xplor, to streamline the admin process for parents and childcare operators alike, which he sold in 2020 to US private equity, reportedly making xplor worth $100million, and putting Mark onto the Financial Review Young Rich List. Hope you enjoy his remarkable startup journey.
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What’s next in Jack Gance’s Chemist Warehouse journey, is Optometrist Warehouse, yes indeed, his latest venture to disrupt the Optometry landscape is coming to a suburb near you. And could an IPO still be on the table? Plus, he explains how hocking everything in the early days was crucial to build up his retail and distribution chain, but how being completely debt-free since the early 1990’s has its advantages. And he pays tribute to his wife Evelyn, his family and his Jewish faith as the foundation stone in his life.
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An immigrant child of Polish Jewish parents, Jack Gance ended up disrupting several entire industries with HIS model of shopkeeping. The pharmacist turned into an entrepreneur by chance really. After university he and his brother started with just 1 pharmacy in the early 1970’s, which they slowly built on. Along the journey, Jack Gance totally upended the way traditional pharmacies in Aussie suburbs operate, by essentially making all the other products chemists sell aside from prescriptions, more enticing and cheaper for shoppers. He also built a distribution business in the process.

Over 51 years in business Jack Gance built up his Chemist Warehouse business and brand into a household name, thereby revolutionising not just the pharmacy model, but the entire retailing landscape. Now with 500 partner/franchise stores and around $8billion turnover a year, Jack reflects, just a little, on that amazing entrepreneurial journey.
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When you sell your small successful travel startup to one of the world’s biggest companies, isn’t that when the champagne pops and you sit back to revel in your success? Well no, according to serial entrepreneur Zac Altman, that’s when you effectively take on 2 full-time jobs. Navigating the transition presents a whole new set of challenges to meld both companies together seamlessly. In Part 2 of our interview Zac explains just what it takes. He also elaborates on how to scale up and why years of hard work iterating a product is the reality is preferable to the dream of the “overnight success”. Zac also believes founders need to protect their employees’ well-being and care for their own mental health, to avoid burnout.
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