Fayl Tales

Loveth Ochayi
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

"failing" is a normal part of building, especially when you're at the frontier of great innovation. so i sit down with founders and investors and get into the messy version of their story: the pivots, the near-misses, mistakes and everything usually edited out. and i break down jargon and deep dives into the things nobody explains properly.

  1. 5d ago ·  Video

    $80k loan at 17, shark tank at 20, vagina on a billboard at 31 ~ Briella Brown

    Briella Brown started Your Closet at 17 with an $80,000 personal loan from her father. She was making $35,000 a month, dropped out of university, went on Shark Tank, asked for $80,000 for 20% equity and walked out with $80,000 for 40%.  Then ran the business for eight years, sold it, started a jewellery company during COVID and exited that too. That next thing is Biolae. A perimenopause brand with Pip Edwards as a shareholder, a class 2B medical device in market after three years through the TGA, and a billboard campaign that put the word vagina on Sydney streets for the first time. We get into 👇: ★ Going on Shark Tank at 20, giving away 40% equity and why she says it was worth it ★ The nine month acquisition process that gave her sleepless nights until the very last signature ★ Why she took a checkout job at David Jones after exiting two companies ★ Why she's builing a perimenopause brand when she hasn't personally experienced it ★ What Janine Allis told her about naivety that she still thinks about today ***and if you're reading this, pls pls pls pls hit the follow button Subscribe to our newsletter for the coolest drops: https://substack.com/@fayltales Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fayltales/ Keep up to date with Loveth: https://au.linkedin.com/in/loveth-ochayi-a67491152 Check out Biolae: https://www.biolae.com.au/ Follow us on all platforms! Instagram ~ @fayltales Tiktok ~ @fayltales  LinkedIn ~ @fayltales

  2. Sep 28 ·  Video

    how paypal won the first payments war

    Fayl Safe episode three, PayPal. Specifically, the guy who actually invented online payments and went bankrupt. The startup that began as a Palm Pilot IOU app and accidentally became the biggest payments company in the world. The moment Elon Musk got ousted as CEO while on his honeymoon in Sydney. And why a guy named Eric Jackson ignored his bosses, bet on eBay auction users, and changed everything. This one is one of the most interesting stories we've covered on Fayl Safe. And there are lessons in here that apply to every founder building. Welcome back to Fayl Safe, the series where we break down business history and startup concepts. We get into 👇: ★ David Chaum, the man who invented online payments in the 1980s, raised $10 million and went bankrupt ★ How PayPal started as software for Palm Pilot IOUs and pivoted into a payments company by accident ★ The employee who ignored his bosses, bet on eBay auction users and triggered explosive growth ★ Elon Musk getting ousted as CEO while on his honeymoon in Sydney via a no confidence vote ★ How PayPal invented CAPTCHA and the random micro deposit check to fight $10 million a month in fraud ★ Why being first to market is a tactic not a goal according to Peter Thiel  Follow us on all platforms! Instagram ~ @fayltales Tiktok ~ @fayltales  LinkedIn ~ @fayltales

    how paypal won the first payments war

  3. Sep 21 ·  Video

    six co-founders, no vesting schedules and a $7m hole ~ Patrick Collins

    Patrick Collins is a sixth time founder. He pivoted his last company three times, moved it to San Francisco, and then watched a co-founder burn through $7 million in under a year. He took over as CEO, cut the team from 40 to five, rebuilt it and sold it to the largest private marketing agency in the US. Then spent 13 years in Silicon Valley. Came back. Spent 10 years as a Chief Product Officer at Zip, Air Tasker and Secure Code Warrior. Then quit to do it all again. His youngest just turned 14. The timing works. Now he's building Dam Secure, a cybersecurity startup racing to secure the code that AI is writing faster than anyone can check. 11 months old. Customers. $6.1 million raised. We get into: ★ Six co-founders, no vesting schedules and $7 million gone in under a year ★ The difference between Australian and American leadership  ★ How to sell into the US market and why most Australians get it completely wrong ★ 700 AI agents that broke out of OpenAI and hacked into another company without anyone noticing ★ Why you can't build a startup on the side no matter how much you want to believe you can ★ Why AI is making software faster to write but not more secure  Follow us on all platforms! Instagram ~ @fayltales Tiktok ~ @fayltales  LinkedIn ~ @fayltales

    six co-founders, no vesting schedules and a $7m hole ~ Patrick Collins

  4. Sep 14 ·  Video

    camels. skydiving. fake funeral. somehow its worked ~ Michael McRae

    Most brands pitch supermarkets with a deck. These two showed up on a camel. Michael McRae was meant to be a lawyer. Instead he ended up selling beer across Tokyo, Singapore and Vietnam with his mate Tom. One morning, Tom was putting on moisturiser, he tried it and said "holy shit". They googled how to make moisturiser. Hired a contract chemist. Kept their day jobs. Set milestones. Hit them. Quit. And built Two Dudes into a men's skincare brand now stocked in 2,500 stores across Australia and New Zealand. Along the way they  hosted a fake funeral for their old packaging, got Tom to skydive into a Chemist Warehouse, made moisturiser for ball sacks and ended up on national TV in Budgie Smugglers to get the attention of supermarket buyers. And it worked. We get into 👇: ★ How a girlfriend's skincare routine became the bones of a global brand ★ Why they kept their day jobs for six months and the milestones they set before quitting ★ The 50 guy trial group where one dude rubbed face wash in without rinsing it off ★ Why they market like a craft beer company and what the camel stunt actually achieved ★ The fake funeral that made customers think the brand had folded ★ Why raising too much money is one of the most dangerous things a founder can do Follow us on all platforms! Instagram ~ @fayltales Tiktok ~ @fayltales  LinkedIn ~ @fayltales

  5. Sep 7 ·  Video

    your startup will likely fail. here's how to survive it ~ Byron McCaughey

    Byron McCaughey spent 15 years in Europe working in sports sponsorship, Formula One and advertising. Did an MBA at Imperial College London. Built a fintech startup with his co-founder Henry. Raised £80,000 from 50 MBA classmates. Tried to crowdfund half a million pounds. Fell six figures short of the target. Then COVID hit. And they folded. What happened next? Byron became a psychologist. Specifically for founders. Because when he went looking for support after the business collapsed, he found that therapists didn't get what it meant to run a company, and business coaches lacked depth. So he spent five years studying and built Sublime Studios to fill the gap. 88% of founders report mental health challenges. And sadly this probably doesn't surprise you. ★Annnddd we just launched our newsletter! Our first edition is pretty slick: https://fayltales.substack.com/p/the-math-of-starting-late?r=7cmxs1 Follow Byron: https://byronmccaughey.com/ #startuppodcast #founderstory #founderwellbeing #foundermentalhealth #buildinginpublic Follow us on all platforms! Instagram ~ @fayltales Tiktok ~ @fayltales  LinkedIn ~ @fayltales

  6. Aug 31 ·  Video

    friendster v myspace v facebook

    Welcome back to fayl safe, the series where I break down startup concepts and history. Episode two. Social media. Specifically why Friendster turned down a $30 million offer from Google, why MySpace sold for $580 million in two years and then got offloaded for $35 million, and how a 19 year old Harvard student ended up winning. There are lessons in here that still apply to every founder building. We get into 👇: ★ Six Degrees, the first ever social network launched in 1997 and why it failed before anyone knew it existed ★ Friendster, the $30 million Google offer that got rejected, and what happened next ★ Why Friendster's tech couldn't handle its own growth and what technical debt means ★ MySpace, 75 million users, Calvin Harris getting his big break, and a $580 million exit in two years ★ How Facebook won by being elitist, exclusive and growing slowly on purpose ★ Why being first to market is not always an advantage and what the fast follower gets right p.s. please leave a comment if you're reading this and let me know your thoughts! p.p.s subscribe (thank you very much) Chapters: 0:00 the teaser 1:51 six degrees, the og social network nobody remembers 6:05 friendster turned down google for $30 million 13:59 myspace watched friendster die  18:35 rupert murdoch paid $580 million for myspace 23:23 zuckerberg launches the facebook from his dorm room 30:30 reid hoffman buys the six degrees patent  39:30 friendster finds a second life in asia  47:26 what news corp did to myspace 52:30 why friendster changed everything  #startuppodcast #faylsafe #startuphistory #socialmedia #buildinginpublic Follow us on all platforms! Instagram ~ @fayltales Tiktok ~ @fayltales  LinkedIn ~ @fayltales

  7. Aug 24 ·  Video

    hangovers are a business opportunity ~ Tim O'Sullivan

    im O'Sullivan got expelled from his fancy Melbourne private school at 16 for shoplifting on a ski trip. He never went to university. Instead he spent his early twenties throwing parties in Vietnam, bribing police with $20 USD. He never went to university. He did spend his early twenties throwing parties in Vietnam, bribing police with $20 USD, and making coffees at his family cafe in Essendon. And then he went to Korea and found liquid gold in the form of pear juice. Bae Juice is now in four and a half thousand stores across Australia. They raised a million dollars from a LinkedIn message. Spent two years in New York and ran out of cash. And now they're doing $2-3 million in revenue spending basically nothing on marketing. The story of how they got there is genuinely wild. We get into 👇: ★ The birth of the 'i can do anything' mentality in Vietnam ★ The trip to Korea that changed everything ★ Starting Bae Juice with $5,000 and getting a crucial yes from someone who didn't speak English ★ Getting into Woolworths, Coles and Costco with zero FMCG experience ★ New York, running out of cash and coming home #startuppodcast #founderstory #fmcgstartup #buildinginpublic #australianstartups Follow us on all platforms! Instagram ~ @fayltales Tiktok ~ @fayltales  LinkedIn ~ @fayltales

  8. Aug 17 ·  Video

    two rejections, one pivot, $3.5m ~ Cordelia King

    The Superstat crew applied to Startmate three times. Got rejected twice. Went from zero to $240,000 in recurring revenue in 12 weeks. And then Blackbird led a $3.5 million pre-seed round. And who are these weapon trio? Cordelia King, Sam Hung and Kai Bloomfield. SuperStat uses AI to turn raw match footage into player stats, event timelines and performance patterns automatically. Built for the 99% of sport that has absolutely no data at all.  The parents spending two to four hours every weekend manually cutting up footage and doing stats. The kids who never get seen because they don't have the data to back up how good they are. This one moves fast. Because so did they. We get into 👇: ★ The previous company TrainStop, called the Tinder for local sport, and how it led to SuperStat ★ Why footy didn't work and basketball did, courts are the same size every time ★ Going to stadiums on Friday nights with flyers and approaching strangers filming games ★ Zero to $240,000 in recurring revenue in 12 weeks during the Startmate program ★ Pitching to American VCs and being told Aussies are way too laid back ★ Why they're moving to Austin, Texas and what scares Cordelia most about leaving Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fayltales/ Keep up to date with Loveth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loveth-ochayi-a67491152/ Follow superstat on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superstatsport/  Chapters: 0:00 the teaser 0:58 the tinder for local sport 1:51 why footy didn't work and basketball did 3:45 the first four weeks 5:43 friday nights at stadiums with flyers 9:35 zero to $240k in 12 weeks 10:34 san francisco and pitching american vcs 11:58 the aws bill anxiety 13:23 blackbird led the $3.5m raise 14:45 why austin texas 16:28 graphic designer who designed the logo in a day #startuppodcast #founderstory #sportstech #buildinginpublic #femalefounder  Follow us on all platforms! Instagram ~ @fayltales Tiktok ~ @fayltales  LinkedIn ~ @fayltales

See All (57)

About

"failing" is a normal part of building, especially when you're at the frontier of great innovation. so i sit down with founders and investors and get into the messy version of their story: the pivots, the near-misses, mistakes and everything usually edited out. and i break down jargon and deep dives into the things nobody explains properly.

Information

  • Creator
    Loveth Ochayi
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    57
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Fayl Tales
  • Show Website
    Fayl Tales