Startup 360

Startup Daily
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Every Friday, Startup 360 hosts Simon Thomsen and Majella Campbell, dissect the news of the week in ANZ startups, before they’re joined by a guest to explore what makes them tick. Think of it as your startup guide to staying human. It’s all about lifting the bonnet on people to understand how they see the world and what inspires and drives them, and what they’ve learnt from both success and failure.

  1. 6d ago

    Finding your startup tribe with Innovation Bay’s Ian Gardiner

    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.

  2. Aug 30

    How Lucinda Hartley’s great Australian dream is rethinking home ownership

    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.

  3. Aug 20

    Four Pillars Gin cofounder Matt Jones on making your story come true

    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.

  4. Aug 14

    What scammers and founders have in common - and why slowing down matters

    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.

  5. Aug 6

    A comedian and corporate marketer walk into a startup with a 2000-year-old Roman sports drink

    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

  6. Jul 31

    To head the cowboys off at the pass, Emma Earley is getting 1000s of women into AI

    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

  7. Jul 24

    The 2am Macca’s test on loving your startup idea

    For episode 67 of Startup 360, Simon and Julie talk with Mark Zmarzly - founder, prolific angel investor and AWS credits-turned-coupons fairy. Or Z. Not Zed, because that sends things into Pulp Fiction territory. Among many hats, the Nebraska-born accidental Australian and former startup whisperer is also a late-in-life basketball tragic, as Startup Basketball fans know. This year, he swapped a 5-star big tech gig for life in startuplandia at Morfless, helping startups cut their AWS bills. Z built and sold his own fintech startup in the 2010s after moving  his wife and three kids to Australia following a chance SXSW conversation and Australian government grant. The rest is now part of local startup history. Having learnt so much building fintech Hip Pocket in 2013, he now reminds other founders about the things they keep forgetting. And the bloke who got a degree in creative writing knows how to tell a story, explaining that you should embrace your quirks because sameness is not a moat. Neither is vibe coding. Yes you can now spin up a product faster than ever, but as Z reminds us: just because you can build something doesn’t mean you should. It all boils down to love. The real founder test comes much later, when it’s 2am, you’re alone in the metaphorical basement of Macca’s, and lonely and exhausted, and have to ask whether you still care enough about the problem to keep going. Z’s someone who can talk about AWS cost optimisation, angel investing, sport, parenting, founder pain and storytelling without it sounding like a LinkedIn B2B sales pitch. He's a three-pointer. 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

  8. Jul 17

    How to lighten the load for founders and who can make the best decisions

    Most founders start a business believing they'll build freedom. Sometimes it can end up imprisoning you. Every important decision lands on the founder's desk. Every approval, problem, late-night phone call. As Nicholas Thomson, the founder of Iceberg explains it on episode 66 of Startup 360, it’s like carrying a backpack filled with bricks and every day, another brick is added. Nick left corporate life and started Iceberg to help people challenge one of the deepest assumptions in business: that leaders have to make all the decisions. Culture isn't created by motivational posters or mission statements, he says. It's created by the systems we build every day. The conversation explores why so many founders become the bottleneck in their own companies, how hierarchy can unintentionally suppress initiative, and why the people closest to the customer often make the best decisions. Simon and cohost Julie Trell also tackle one of the trickiest issues for startups – financial transparency. How much should a team really know when every month can feel like life or death? It's a fascinating debate that goes to the heart of trust, ownership and leadership. Along the way there's plenty of Startup 360 banter, including a spirited discussion about the corporate obsession with "stretch goals", why spending thousands of dollars in meetings to approve a $200 purchase makes no sense, and whether work should ever leave you in tears. If you've ever found yourself wondering why your business still depends on you for everything, this episode offers a different way of thinking. It won't solve every leadership challenge overnight, but it might just help you take a few bricks out of the backpack. 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

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Every Friday, Startup 360 hosts Simon Thomsen and Majella Campbell, dissect the news of the week in ANZ startups, before they’re joined by a guest to explore what makes them tick. Think of it as your startup guide to staying human. It’s all about lifting the bonnet on people to understand how they see the world and what inspires and drives them, and what they’ve learnt from both success and failure.

Information

  • Creator
    Startup Daily
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    74
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Private Media. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction, distribution, or use of this podcast, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited.
  • Show Website
    Startup 360

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