October 13, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode, Holly Fowler, founder of Wable, joins us to share how she’s building the world’s first dating app designed specifically for the neurodivergent community.
Inspired after watching Love on the Spectrum, Holly opens up about the personal experiences that led her to create Wable, co-founding it with Michael Theo, the stigma neurodivergent people often face in dating, and how her platform is creating safer, more inclusive spaces for genuine connection.
We explore the challenges of launching a startup in an overlooked market, the growing investor interest in neurodiversity, and Holly’s vision for the future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the mentor. I'm Mark Boris holy Fellow. Welcome
to the mentor.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thank you thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So you're the CEO and founder of wable or what is?
What's way will Meet? What's a stand for me?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Wave will stands for willing and able, which I think
perfectly describes neurodivergent people all over the world and willing
and able to make connections. Just a bit of a
helping hand for our community.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And also working. You're saying it makes connections, So what
is what does waybill do? What sort of connections you
talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah? Sure, So. Wable is a social networking app built
specifically for the neurodivergent community. So think of it a
place to find dates, friends, jobs, and support all in
one place. So maybe like Tinder and Seek had a baby,
but for neurodivergent people is a good way to describe it.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's interesting you're talk about neurodivergent. Dumb it's a new word,
relatively speaking your word, and it covers a broad base.
What is neurodivergent?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, so neurodivergence and umbrella term. It captures or people
with autism, autistic people, dyslexic people, people with OCD ADHD,
A whole bunch of different neurotypes under that umbrella term neurodivergent.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So maybe it gives it a little you'd obviously know.
I don't know, but you could give maybe a bit
of a history of when that term first started to
be used, because I'm well aware of the thought processing
(01:46):
descriptions of convergent and divergent in terms of how our
brain works as thought processes. Neuro divergent sounds cool, it's
a good sound would but how did that come about? Like,
what's the history that would?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it's an interesting one. I'm not exactly sure when
we started using the word neurodivergent, but when.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Do we start hearing about it?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I think probably more recently, and I think maybe
it's because I think it's because of increased awareness, particularly
around autism here in Australia. We can Akin's Eye can
some of that at least have shows like Love on
the Spectrum, which is obviously where Wabell started, but better
diagnostic measures, more awareness. You know, the draft Autism strategy
(02:34):
at federal government level this year come out in Australia.
So I think neurodivergent captures so many different people. I mean,
it's twenty percent of the population. We hear about rises
in diagnosis for ADHD, and I think it's a nice
way to capture a really important segment of the community.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, well, you obviously got a very big TAM in
relation to this. If we're talking just business. Yeah, you know,
the TAM is the total just re market's quite large. Ye,
seems like it's growing. Investors would be interested in that
in the pure money sense, I guess for sure, But
I just wanted to dig into that a little bit.
(03:12):
I'll come back to love on the spectrum in the moment,
because that's probably what maybe what inspired you to do it,
and sort of the convergence of COVID and in our
country anyway, the sort of further development of Bill Shorten's
(03:37):
indies which sort of got a lot of got more
legs during the pre election period of twenty nineteen, and
the huge allocation of dollars towards that scheme, and then
(03:58):
lots of people got put into this. You're a divergent category.
If I just put out of that category, you know,
people who are autistic actually autistic as opposed to the
broader group. How much impact do you think that changes
in attitude across the world perhaps, but definitely here in
(04:21):
Australia contributed to this twenty percent market. Because if you
had to asked someone that, if I had asked you
prior to that period, that COVID period, how big is
the bots of tail addressable market of you're a divergent people.
Assuming way we both knew what that was, it wouldn't
(04:42):
be anywhere near what it is now like because we
just didn't know. But all of a sudden it's blown up.
It's got really huge. What have we got actually an
emerging problem because there's so many people who are affected
by this that we never knew about in the past
and we're ignoring or is there something that's happened vaccinations,
(05:05):
I don't know, whatever be fast in the world. I
don't know what it is that's that you know about
this maybe contributing to this or is it just a
people who have identified themselves as one of these types
of people and it's sort of becoming a phenotype, you know,
like a you know, I describe myself as this type
(05:26):
of person like a phenotype sense, like you know, someone
might describe themselves a phenotype physically, but other people can
describe themselves in the phenotype of you know, intellectually, I mean,
I'm confused by it all. Actually am you know, what
is the thinking about this? You know? And obviously investors,
you know, you've just done some successful rounds, raise some money.
Obviously investors must be talking about this too. It must
(05:49):
be a global thing.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, So I mean I would reframe away from you know,
seeing more more people identify with neurodivergence is not a problem.
I mean, you're divergence has already been there has been.
People have been autistic for as long as time. But
more people are being diagnosed now there.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Why is it?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, a few things. I think there's better diagnostic tools
these days. I think more people are willing to talk
about it. Yes, there is still an enormous amount of
stigma surrounding autistic people mostly, but I feel like we
are moving in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Has become cool. Yeah, well I don't. I actually don't
think it's stigmatized. Somehow is I don't know why, But
that's that's sort of trying to dig into here. It's
managed to become like I hear people say it, then
it's the you're diversion. They say them on the spectrum,
you know, sort of thing. The show made it cool
because it was a cool, good show, But it's sort
(06:47):
of like cool now. I don't know about another country.
I'm just talking about here. It's nearly like I have
a special power. I'm you're a divergent, whether that whether
that's autistic or just ADHD. Yeah, and I presume ADHD
comes undo the coy. Yeah, absolutely, and even that, I
mean there's degrees of ADHD probably, you know, like, well,
(07:09):
I'm thinking about it, like probably everyone I know has
got ADHD as growing up, I think, But maybe I
had it and maybe I still have it.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Maybe my four sons had it. I don't know, maybe
my grandson's got it. I don't know the answer. But
because I'm not a diagnostic person, but you know, there's
somewhere we pretty much all sit into the category. And
because I'm going to come back to your business model,
because say, how do you feel to that? Of course, yeah,
because that's important because because you don't want impostors getting
(07:37):
in there totally. Yeah, And so if I could just
talk generally about the addressable market and you say it's growing,
which is great for vestors, and it's great for you
in terms of your pitch, But how do you can
sort of compact that and make sure it's you know,
it sounds terrible, but you're not taking advantage of the growth.
I'm not saying you are, but I'm just I don't
(07:59):
seen doing that.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
No, absolutely not. I think the key is that neurodivergent
people have always been looking for a place. Everyone wants
to go to a community and be part of a
community that feels where you feel like you belong, whether
it's your sporting community or your work community. But for
neurodivergent people, especially autistic people, they're not really necessarily looking
(08:21):
for a neurotypical person to date or in their close
friendship circles. But there are a lack of places wheen
you're a divergent people or autistic people primarily can find
one another in a close knit environment, and it was
certainly lacking in modern dating and social apps. So we
feel a niche. But you know, like you say that
the niche is growing, it's a lot of people. And
(08:43):
whilst we say it's neurodivergent people make up to twenty
percent of the population, it's probably more than likely forty
percent and much bigger than that. That's you know, that's
what we know of diagnosed, but it's actually likely a
larger number. And yeah, lots of people going on diagnosis
journeys later in life going like what you just said,
Oh that actually sounds like me, or watching Love on
(09:03):
the Spectrum or here listening to a podcast and going
I struggle with those things as well. Maybe maybe that's
me and going on a diagnosis journey much later in life.
We hear of women over forty being diagnosed with ADHD
at bigger rates. I'm ADHD, so I get it. But yeah,
it's interesting. But I think we are writing a bit
of a wave at the moment. And I think for
(09:26):
me at least, I noticed it really when Love on
the Spectrum came out and people were talking me, yes, yes, yeah,
ABC and now Netflix and they went on to do
a US series which is great, and you know, Lee
Sales heading up a news show on the ABC, The
Assembly with autistic journalists, and so there's so much more
representation in media. I mean, we still have a very
(09:48):
long way to go, but I think we are riding
a wave of hopefully nearing you know, better inclusion, particularly
here in Australia. The States is like another ball game. Obviously,
we've all heard the bits and pieces coming out of America,
and I don't believe there's you know, the whole conversation
(10:08):
around Tyler and Noll and vaccines. I just dismiss entirely
that it's a cause. And I think some of.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
That doesn't matter what the cause is.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
A No, I don't think there is a cause. It's
just neurodivergence is another neurotype. And I think the sooner
that we can accept everyone in the community, the better.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So it should it be called Maybe we shouldn't be
called neurodivergence in maybe maybe you know, if you say
it's just another type.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, when you think about it, it's just another another way
of thinking. We all think differently. Why is one scene
as lesser than the other? Or yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Correct? And that's sort of my thing. So I can
understand why autistic people might want to have a social platform,
perhaps particularly people a little bit further along the spectrum
of autism, where they find it socially awkward to socialize
with non autistic people. Therefore, they might find it difficult
(11:07):
to meet appropriate people in their in their lives and
Whi's why I thought that show was a great show
because it was pairing them up sort of thing and
watching watching them understand, you know, how relationships work, and
of someone who thinks similarly to them. Because what I
(11:30):
get I get nervous about these things is, you know,
I'm interested to know what your model does, but making
sure you don't get imposters in there. For sure, could
trying to take advantage of someone who's maybe naive in
a social sense or and or just as a result
(11:53):
of their awkwardness therefore don't understand or don't have the
same comprehension of where a trickster might be or a
confidence person might be. Go like, someone's trying to take
their confidence, steal the confidence, is what I mean? Yeah,
because it's a you know, because we see it. We
said it. On the other it's called dating platforms, I know,
not just to day dating platforms. We see this process
(12:16):
being abused like often on some of the other platforms.
I'm not going to mention them, but and I'm just
curious as to know how you what is your software
do and we'll talk about that in the moment. I
think that's really for me, it's most interesting thing about
your platform. I get the title just market, I get
(12:39):
all that. I get that there definitely would be a need,
is a need I probably what I want to come
back to that, because this is the mentor show is about,
you know, business owners. I want to come back to those.
What inspired you and what was your what did you
do prior to doing this, and why did you decide
(13:00):
maybe I'll build a social platform for this part of society.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah, sure, well I could take you way back to
at the beginning. But yeah, prior to this, I had
a I you know, entrepreneurship wasn't necessarily on my vision
board by any means. It maybe happened by accident. But
I used to work in media, so I.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Did as a journalist sort of.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I did sports presenting, so I was a boundary writer
for the a AFL.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Games with se Boundary Rider.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, like on the boundary reporting. So I'm a big
sports and I love I love sport, I love AFL
and I had a breakfast show with s CN for
a little while and at a great time. Yeah yeah,
so used to being behind the mic, but not not
as much talking about business, more about sport and that
kind of thing. But after that I worked in PR
and marketing, so which has been an advantage much later on.
(13:56):
But I didn't know it. But yeah, of course lockdown hit.
I'm a Melbour girl, so I suspend.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You guys were lockdown.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, yes, lockdown for the we were the most lockdown
city I think in the world. I don't remember which
lockdown it was, maybe number five or six. But of
course I came across Love on the Spectrum, which at
the time was first hit the ABC, and Michael Theo
was a breakout star really from the show. He's hails
from Wollongong. I think he's in Sydney today actually, but
(14:23):
it was off filming. He's doing amazing things. But Michael's autistic,
and we got to watch his first date on the
show and witness his tenacity in search of love despite
the challenges he faces as an autistic person.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And I was just so, did you just explain to
me what they are? Because I remember I don't remember,
I don't remember him specifically. Yeah, but what would the
challenges be you mean outside of another person with autism,
do you mean like with the person who's non autistic.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, sure, Well, look, every you know, if you meet
one person that's autistic. You meet one person and that's autistic.
But you know, so everyone's challenges are different. But some
of the challenges that experienced often you know, regulating some emotions,
reading other people's body language, and you know, like we
(15:16):
always say, a lot of autistic people don't pick up
on sarcasm and things like that. So when it comes
to meeting someone, I mean, yeah, those sorts of things.
But when it comes to meeting someone for the first time,
particularly in a date setting or making new friends, it
can be hard to initiate and maintain that connection in
the first point, especially with someone that might not understand
(15:36):
some of the ways that you think like all of us.
And yeah, a lot of heightened anxiety around sort of
those situations compared to a neurotypical person. But to be honest,
I think neurotypical or neurodivergent, a first date setting or
making new friends comes with a bit of anxiety for anyone,
I think, at least speaking from personal experience.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
And how did Michael go in that that serious It was.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
A series of yeah, it was, I mean, he's amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Recall.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, they set up like kind of like speed dating
type settings and then once they find matches that they
might like to sort of continue on with, the producers
will set them up on a date. And the Australian
producer has gone on to produce the US another series
Key and he's amazing, and yeah, so Michael we got
to see he's Michael is a true gentleman and all
(16:26):
he's ever wanted for his whole life is a to
be an actor and be to find a girlfriend, and
thankfully now he's found both. But he he's just such
a lover, but a real gentleman, and so we got
to see that on the show, and of course everyone
fell in love with him. So once the show ended,
he went on Ellen in America. I think Kim Kardashian
(16:47):
posted about him or something, and.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
He's off the Australier show.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, and his profile just why would they be watching
Love on the Spectrum or how would they get to
know him? Well, well, social media as well was big one.
But Ellen degenerous somehow saw Michael. Perhaps she watched the
show or one of her producers. I'm not exactly sure
how it happened, but he wound up on Ellen and
(17:13):
it was just crazy like this, this guy from Wollongong
that we didn't know about is now all over screens
in the US, and then obviously the US season came later.
But I think maybe it captured the world's attention at
the right time. We weren't talking about neurodivergence as much then,
and I think it probably was a lot of people's
introduction to I knew sort of what autism was, but
(17:36):
I hadn't really seen seen it in the media or
seen autistic people dating. And I think it was really
new and captured a lot of people's hearts. So I
was on my couch and thought, oh, I was using
a few dating and social apps at the time, and
I thought, this is hard for anyone in a time
as well where everyone's feeling a bit lonely in COVID
(17:58):
and you know, crazy in human connection that's all everyone wants.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
But because most of the dating apps will great to
be honestly, that were paying the ass, so you know,
and then you're probably thinking of yourself, well, like, there's
dating apps for me, and they're not they're not perfect,
you know they you know, you can run into a
brick wall quite often, and you probably did. You think
you must be terrible for a person who's on the spectrum.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Well, I just thought this has got to be even harder,
and I just DMed Michael on Instagram and I said, look,
you don't even know who I am, but holy I've
got this idea. I'm thinking about building an app for
particularly autistic people, but later on captured neurodivergent community. I
want to connect autistic people for dating, friendship, and jobs,
(18:44):
because unfortunately, the autistic community is severely underrepresented in the
workplace as well, despite being like neurodivergent people being some
of the brightest minds and creatives on the planet. But
and I really wanted to do something. So when I
told Michael, he was like, oh my god, we've been
waiting for someone to do this. If you do it,
please get me involved. And then I spoke to Michael's mum,
(19:08):
who plays a really important role in his life as
well and such a great support for him. And then
I spoke with psychologists and counselors and occupational therapists and
everyone was just saying, why isn't why isn't this happening already?
You've got to do it. So I don't know if
it's it's inherently been in me always or maybe it's
(19:29):
a bit of the ADHD. But once I get stuck
on an idea, I have to see it through. I've
become very obsessed. I became obsessed with this and I
was going to see it through one way or another,
and I did.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
So what's the first thing you do when you're yeah,
let's forget about for a second the cohort of you
know who you're trying to talk to. But what was
the first thing you did? Do you think of a
business name? Did you think of the tech that you
the stack you got to put together, or what you do?
(20:04):
And do you remember the time and place or not
the time, but where you were when you thought, yep,
I'm doing this. Did you make desay only my job?
Did you do it as a side.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Hustle No, so I did it as a side hustle
for a while, and no one knew about it.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Except in stealth.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I did it in stealth, yeah, which I sometimes regret.
I you know, the whole everyone has that sort of
build in public thing. Now you see a lot of
founder content building in public. And I, if I could
go back, I probably would have documented more than what
I did. But I was, you know, I had a
really good job, and I was, you know, getting paid
by great companies to do the job. And I didn't
(20:39):
want anyone to think I wasn't committed to that either,
because I respect that. So I was building it in
the night. I'd sort of start work at you know,
eight till five and then go home and work from
have dinner, and work from you know, seven thirty till
three am for probably a good couple of years. To
get a cold.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
It could actually holly like because that's massive commitments. So
during that period, so we're talking this COVID.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Period, Yeah, COVID period.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
So we're talking to say, three or four years ago.
During that period, often people say to me, how can
you do that? How can anyone do that? Have the job,
then do the side hustle and work those hours, you know,
whatever time and night you're doing that. Then get up
in the morning and go perhaps go to the gym,
perhaps not, then go to work and then do your
(21:27):
job and then et cetera. How do you how did
you fit into that period social life? So I don't
know what your relationships were without a bloke or not.
What don't have to be a blow could be a female.
But did you have a partner during that period. Did
you go to gym? What did you have to sacrifice
(21:47):
or nothing at all? Maybe you're able to fit everything in.
I don't know, a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, yeah, sacrificed a lot. Or even when I was
trying to get a bit of a social life, I
was pretty run down and kind of not very present.
Like it does take a lot, I mean, and you know,
we launched last year, so that's a good four years.
A lot happens in four years in someone's life. I
had a break up when I was starting the business,
and you just have to keep there's no time to
(22:13):
just like kind of grumble and with you know, personal
challenges or challenges. No, no, not not a cause of it,
but certainly like yeah, now I've got a partner who
really understands this sort of world. But it takes a
different kind of beast to be with. I think a
startup founder as well, because a lot of your time
and attention is certainly on the growth of your business.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
You know, if we're just dig into that, because I
think a lot of aspirational people who listen to the
show and or people are in the startup phase, you know,
they think that it's a pretty lonely place doing these
sorts of things. It is, because so what happens with
your what did you decide to do save for your mates?
From you? I presume it's good Melbourne somewhere. Yeah, so
(22:59):
you have your schoolmate, it's probably you know, they're all
got a job like you had, but therefore finished at
five and on Friday night every month, they probably are
going to have a dinner together and again maybe a
few drinks, so I'll forget dancing whatever karaoke? Did you
make a Is it hard to keep together with that
group of mates? And if you were successful at it,
(23:22):
what mechanisms did you use to keep it like that?
Or did you just make a hard decision say well,
I'm going to have to sacrifice that because I'm so
passionate about this. Yeah, wable thing.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah. I think I'm really lucky in that my friends
and family and I built a lot of this during
the time as a single person, so that that I
just had that to focus on as well. So a
lot of it is quite lonely and isolating. But I
suppose I was like, in my mind, okay, I really
just have to knuckle down on this, and what's you know,
(23:55):
a couple of years in the span of my whole lifetime.
But then too, you know, you turn into two and
three into four and this will this is life now
for a long time. But I my friends are people
that were like, I really believe in what you're doing
as well, and I soo see the vision. I know
you have to you know, a lot of things have
to go on the back burner, and I'm lucky that
(24:16):
the people in my life were like, you know, Holly Zann,
She'll be there as much as she can. But if
I have to dip out early from something, it's it's
understood and not sort of shamed upon.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But I maybe, like, did you lose connections?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
No, not necessarily, I think I may. I just maybe
for some periods probably wasn't myself, Like I was pretty
stressed out in the first couple of years, so when
I was out, it comes at a cost. When you're
at dinner you're thinking, I actually felt like a level
of guilt sometimes being about going, yeah, I shouldn't be here.
(24:49):
My phone's going off from developers going can you approve this?
What's the password for this? Can you do this? And
I'm thinking, oh shit, sorry for my last square on
this podcast quite like I need to get out of here,
you know, like everywhere I would go thinking this is
time I could be spending on work, even though obviously
you need to have time away. But Yeah, for me
(25:09):
in particular, it's something I've really struggled with. I still
struggle with now. Is that guilt on myself? Like, Holly,
you know where you should be? It shouldn't be here
for dinner, you know, probably to a maybe an unhealthy level. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, so in other words, but you're able to justify
it by your mission, so to speak. And if I
just let's just park that for a second. And then
in terms of you're you're involved in media, yep, but
all of a sudden, you're the main part of execution
(25:44):
on your idea is you know, some sort of tech stack.
How do you learn about that sort of stuff? Because
I mean, I presume what's happening is you're using your
salary to fund developers and all that sort of stuff. Yeah,
but you know, you're you're running the show, so you
can't let them run off and do whatever they feel
like doing. You have to sort of give them the
(26:04):
architecture around it all. How did you learn about these things.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, well in the beginning phase, like you say, you
put what you can in, you work your job, you
take your pay and you do what you can. And
I remember building like the wire frames with the team,
but really asking people so I start. When I started,
I was like where do I I'm literally googling how
do I start? Happ But I listened to a sports
(26:28):
podcast and listened to James Hurd, who was obviously coach
out at Essendon and I didn't know this but he was.
He's on the board at the time of a startup
in the dating app space, and so because all my
connections were with sport, I went, oh, well, I'll just
talk to him. So weirdly enough, James Hurd was the
first person I ever pitched wable Too as an idea,
(26:51):
and he said, look, I can't invest because it's a
conflict of interest, but I want to introduce you to
the CEO and founder of the company that I'm involved
with and chat to chat to the founders they're Perth
based and get a sense from their idea and it's
I think that the tech sort of startup scene in
(27:11):
Australia is really good because I've that first conversation. Those
founders were so willing to help. Here's the things you've
got to look out for. This is what good tech is,
this is what bad tech is. How do I raise money?
Do I go private investors? Do I go VC? Do
I crowdsource fun? What do I? What do I do?
Because there's so many options. So actually speaking to other
founders in a similar space at the start was key
(27:33):
for me because once I got the tech stack and
a contract and all those sorts of things, I was
able to have people to bounce those ideas off without
paying them, just to help another founder out. At the time,
we had no idea where to start.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Did you develop your own tech stack or did you
get an IT person in, like a senior dev person?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yes, so we had a senior dev build our first
version of.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
The app and local Australian.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
We had a mix, so we had We've had Australian
based and overseas as well, so that with teams that
have worked together and they're amazing. I actually thought about
bringing somebody in house, but our outsource team that we've
used to date have felt like an extension of our team,
so I haven't ran into the issue. But yeah, I mean,
it's hard. Like I was learning. I was learning the
(28:20):
tech side of things from on the run. But when
I started getting really serious and I was like, right,
I'm running out of money here. I'm about eighty percent
of the build through the app. I don't know how
I'm going to finish this, so I need to find investors.
I approached Primary Markets actually out of Sydney and their
chair Jamie Green. It was the first person I spoke to,
(28:43):
aside from Hurdy of course, who couldn't invest. Sorry you
missed opportunity, heard he. But he wouldn't mind me saying that.
But Jamie was like, look, primary Markets helps startups raise money,
but I'm actually really interested in this myself. Fuse on
the spectrum. Can I introduce you to some friends of mine?
(29:04):
Then the next time I'm on the phone with one
of his friends, who's now my chairman, Craig Mason. He's like, yeah,
I've got a few kids and a couple of them
are autistic. I so get this space and these are
you know, Jamie, And Jamie's a lawyer by Trey, Craig's
chairman of another ASX listed business. They know sort of
what to do and they're like, well, how much money
(29:25):
do you need? I was like, I don't know. I
just need to finish this. What do I do? How
do I start? And that's when we formed a board
of a board of three, and thankfully with that came
a CTO from one of Craig's other businesses, and all
of a sudden, I had a pretty nice team around
me or willing to help and also put in some
cash to get me going.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
So your first round was like a preceed and your
first round is like not friends and family, but in.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
A sense Jamie Craig's friends and family. I was very lucky.
And you know, with that round, we got company secretaries
on the cap table and lawyers. All of a sudden,
I'm cutting all these costs. It's really important to get money,
but if you can get smart money with people with
skills that you don't have, that's the best thing I've
ever done. So I raised three hundred grand and that
(30:13):
got me to launch.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And one of the things that often perplexes a lot
of people is that three hundred grand doesn't sound much,
but it's actually quite a lot because it can actually
buy a lot of help. But two things arise from that.
The first thing is investors probably want you now to
be full time on the deal, which means you've got
to leave your job. And then they say then and
(30:35):
of course you've got to get paid so because that
no one wants you to be struggling economically. So they
first thing is say, well, how much do you need?
So you have to work out of the three hundred,
how much you're going to take. And the second thing,
of the three hundred that you've received, you've got to
give way some equity and you've got to put evaluation
on the table. How did you deal with those two things?
And you know, what's a general rule that audiences can
(30:58):
think about you might have experienced as to what's a
fair amount of money that you take out of the
three hundred?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. But you're right. Once I'd raised
the money, everyone was asking, hey, when are you quitting
and going full time?
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Of course it's nearly as Nelly condition presoner.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, And you know what I actually thought it was
the opposite, Like, because I didn't know this world, I thought, oh,
the investors are going to really want all the money
to stay in the business, not going to want it
to go out to wages and that's what I thought,
just so naive about the whole process really at the beginning,
and they were like, no, no, no, we want you
full time on the business, which I was so excited about.
But it was scary because I was used to you know,
(31:37):
this is a guaranteed wage all the time. You've have
all this you know, structure, and you come to work
and you go home and there's a level of comfort
in that. But startup is pretty brutal and you start
burning cash and going okay, we better get raising again
because this is this is pretty full.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
What did you pick? What did you just sort of
settle on?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, so we said no, no, of course we said
it on. It was about three point five our first
raise and three point five million, three point five yeah,
pri so we.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
So you raise three hundred thousand first.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Three hundred thousand, Yeah, so that did you take a wage? Yes, Yes,
I took a wage, yeah, one hundred Yeah, I took
one hundred grand.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
And that I'm very.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Open about because that's usually for the audience, that's usually
the right number.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah. Yeah, Well what I said to and our team's
very open with each other. You know that I was
on that wage previously. And they're like, well, you need
to live comfortably. We don't want you to be stressed
out of your mind, going how am I going to eat?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I don't want that?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
And so that, you know, that was always a pretty.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Open and then how do you work out what you
give away? Like so like you've got to say to that,
and generally speaking, you know, my experience in these things
is the investor doesn't really care about what they do,
but they don't really care about the valuation of that
they're coming in and they're more interested in what that
three hundred thousand dollars can take the too totally. Yeah, Yeah,
(33:02):
it's a relative game. Like if I got ten percent
of something, you know, let's three and it gives me
ten percent because of therefore was worth three million. I'm
only going I'm going to invest in because you're going
to convince me that the three hundred thousand you give
me is going to make you thing worth six millions.
So really, yeah, three hundred thousand doubles, Yeah, exactly, that's
that's the story. Yeah, because I'm going to struggle with what,
how could be worth three million when it's not even built?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yes, yeah, Well, and to be honest, we didn't have
pushback really on valuation at the start. I think what
we argued on and of course lucky that I had
guidance from our border have done razors for other businesses
and all that kind of thing. But you know, we
pretty much completed the tech, we were almost there. I
had Michael lined up as an ambassador already, so I
(33:44):
knew that with Michael as an ambassador, we were going
to get huge reach, and we did. The day we launched,
we had a current Affair Today's show. Then I've gone
Forbes thirty under thirty like the pr just went nuts,
really because we had a great story and it was
good timing. Then we had a couple that fell in
love on the app, and then that was on the
project just before they went off air. So I knew,
(34:04):
I've got a brilliant ambassador spokesperson for the idea. I've
got the tech almost built, eighty percent, run out of money,
really need that money. You've got an ambitious founder me
that's going to go full time. We had a board
at that point with a lawyer Craig chairman. We had
resources already around the business, and we'd had trademarking already
(34:25):
done by that stage. So I'd trademarked wable in Australia
and New Zealand, and so we could argue that we
had some intellectual property there already, we'd I'd built up
a weight list, so I'm like, right, well I have
a weight list of people that will will download this
thing when we go to law. Yeah, so proof of concept.
And like you say, the addressable market is massive. And
(34:45):
I think I was saying the other day if we'd
launched wable maybe five years ago, I don't know that
we would have had their attraction we've had, but we're
coming in. I think timing has been I'm not going
to say, well maybe lucky. There's a bit of lock
in it too, but the timing around the conversation and
what we're doing has married up.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Really. It was a rising type for this stuff. Yeah,
for this service, Yeah, dash product. So do you mind
ask if you don't want to say it's okay, but
what did you have to wait to get the three
hundred grand?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Oh? I need to pull up I need to pull
up my cap table. I'll come back to you what
we what we gave up? But no, it was always
I know for a fact, it was always really important
to our board to retain equity for the for the founder,
and of course in Australia, if if I, if I
retain a good amount of equity as a female in tech,
(35:38):
there's actually quite a lot of support that I can offer.
But if you dilute yourself so far out as the
female founder, a lot of those doors close on you
because they don't want to a lot of you know,
grants and things aren't interested in investing in you. If
in government grants, yeah, government grants and all that kind
of thing. If if you, as the female founder is diluted,
(35:59):
I out so thankfully I've got still a good little
slice of the pie. Even after having just completed our
second raise of one point five.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
So you recently raised, raised again, raised again not here?
Where was it in a America or in Australia?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, yep, So we raised one point five million, this
time at six point five pre so.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Pre raised, pre money, pree money.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
So what that means, people listening, is that the enterprise
value before the money comes in a six point five.
You raised one point five, which means post money that
things worth eighty I ssureing they gave you cash as
opposed to a contra or whatever. So it's now an
eight million dollar val on enterprise valuation and you and
(36:46):
you raised it in Australia. So maybe just for our
audience if you just give us a bit of an idea.
But did you appoint somebody to do the raise for you,
like to lead it for you? Or did you have
to did your first lot of investors have to reinvest?
I wanted to convince the second lot of investors that
it's worth investing. And how that will work.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
It's all about finding a lead. Like until I had
a lead, I got a lot of come back and
speak to me when you've got a lead.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
One.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
No one ever likes to draw the first the first hand,
I suppose, and there's a reason the hardest.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, especially the smaller checks. They'd like to know that
someone's done the work on.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It totally, someone.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
With reputation, and people will often just follow someone else in,
Like someone puts half a million in normally for something
like that, you know, leads half half a million dollars
for example, and all smaller checks fifties, hundreds, they go, well,
they've done the work. I'll follow them in. So that's
a bit of a momentum thing. Is that sort of
(37:43):
what happened to your case? Yes? Yeah, sorry, how'd you
find lead? Then?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
It took a while, but through so I got an
investor in out of Melbourne that I just knew through
connections and she was like, oh, I want to introduce
you to a few people I know. And one of
them was Tourist Capital out of Perth and once.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I health tic what are they?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
A bit of everything? They have a big their own
sort of investment group, yeah, and mandate.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
So I.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Sat down with them, and I sat down with Paul
who works there, and for about an hour we had
coffee and by the end of the coffee he was like,
I mean, we're gonna We're going to find you the money.
So but that was after probably it must must have
been something like nine ten months of me pitching, like
coming to Sydney, pitching to I've done vcs, family offices,
(38:36):
angel investors. There's not a lot of people I haven't
met and pitched too. But that's good because even if
you get to know if I'm coming back again, they
already know me. But yeah, I mean it was tough,
like raising money is no easy feed, I think, and
I thought you know, I've got traction, I've got customers,
(38:58):
I've got'm jenny rating, revenue tick tick ticking, all the
things that you think investors look for. But of course
when you're asking for a bigger check, it's longer. Like
our first raise was actually relative. I hate saying this,
but it was easy. I think everyone is pretty apprecreat
idea yeah kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
It's an idea race.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, yeah, let's see what happens, you know. And then
and I thought, no, now we've got traction, it'll be
it'll be fine, it'll be easy.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
It wasn't. The second race. The seed round, like the
second after the first round, is harder because you've actually
got something which they can now check and they can
see and they can start doing numbers and extrap late
out to the future and say, well, on that basis
we can now we don't believe that you'll get people
(39:45):
to sign up. But how much of the month, how
much she's charging per month for.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
So we charge fourteen ninety nine now for a premium subscription,
but you can also download and use it as a
free yeah, preemium model, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, But I mean, once you're n you've got problem
with that is you've got actually concrete things sitting in
front of you, compared to when you raise the roundred
where people can start to try to do risk their investment.
So they start questioning, questioning those those inputs, those variables.
Will people pay forty ninety nine? Can you tell us
have you done some research to say you can do
(40:16):
forty nine and nine? In the moment you say yes,
I have, then all of a sudden there's something else
that they can start to pull apart. No, well, but
I don't believe that. I don't agree with that or
the it wasn't broad enough. You're right, it is harder.
It is harder, and the next one to be harder again.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Oh yeah, so you've.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Done a preceed you're want a seed and you do
a series A. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Well, it's interesting some people kind of because of the
stage of I suppose traction and stuff. Where we're at
with everyone, like, we've sort of argued that this was
kind of series A, and maybe the first one was
more more seed. We probably kind of skipped a pre
It doesn't mean the pre seed sort of thing. It
doesn't suppose it's the stage of business.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
So it might have been the preceed yourself yet.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, say we're closed series A. So yeah, it's exciting.
And now it's just we just launched the app in
the US and the UK. I've just spent three weeks
over in the state, so yeah, back, I think I've
been home for four days and then come on a
plane to see you. So it's great. Yeah, got a
break from the airport and then come to see you.
(41:15):
So no, it was really cool. And everything just moves
so quick in the US. I mean, obviously it was
an interesting time to be over there in this space,
but we it was crazy. I've been like chasing media
with our PR team to try and get the word
out there. And I had just had a random day
in New York where I got a billboard up in
(41:35):
Times Square, and I'd been chasing a bunch of media
and one of them was Daily Mail in the US
because they have a huge, yeah, a ridiculous amount of
millions of people reading, and I had we'd had some
interests before I left in potentially covering US. But you know,
things always take a bit longer than you want them
to anyway, So I snapped a picture of the billboard
(41:58):
in Times Grand we sent it off to them, and
then within the next hour he's like, yep, so are
you free for an interviewer an hour and then I
was in a cab in New York on the phone
to Daily Mail and it was up the hour after that.
So things do move pretty quickly and it's good timing,
and it was it was really cool to see the
states and now, yeah, seeing people sign up in America
(42:19):
is pretty crazy. So yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
So you've got your so wable's now raised. Yeap, what
have you called series eight? Doesn't matter? You raise one
enough minute. You've got a reasonably good valuation at eight.
You've been out of four or five years now probably
you know, pretty much close to four years for sure.
You're up and running. You got your stack build, and
(42:42):
you've got revenues. Because you are, you have got subscribers.
To speak, how many subscribers you've.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Got, So we got about twelve thousand now and that
was we haven't started any marketing, so are they all
paid or not all paid? About ten percent paid at
the moment, so it's pretty good conversion so far. But
that's on zero marketing, so generic word of mouth our
pr that we at the start just got because it
was a good story. So now the attention is really
(43:09):
ramping up the marketing side of the business and hiring.
So I finally get some helps.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
You can build a team now, like a team that's
not external or oursourcing, it's actually your own team. And
where are you based? Where do they want you to
be based?
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Well, based in Melbourne at the moment, I'll go back
and forth probably until back and forth, back and forth
between the States and Melbourne.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
And then we're in the United States.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, yeah, United States, of course, so I should have
said that, but yeah, so and then I do want
to hire some people in this in the United States.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
It's which stated we're talking about now where you are
in San Francisco where, Yeah, that's what I'm.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Looking at the moment. It's the hiring laws and everything
is a bit confusing. I'm trying to navigate all that
and where all the sort of hot spots are. I mean,
San France is such obviously the tech spot of the world.
There's some cool little pockets out and even like Boston's
now a bit of a hot spot for startups. But yeah,
thinking sand fran would probably be a good place.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
So just a lot of asi there.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yeah, heaps of assies heaps.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
And in La but San Francisca definitely, and and it's
not cheap there, but it's not too bad either relatively speaking.
So but you'll probably have to set up with some
sort of not a lab but la premises and you know,
you will do the usual thing where you'll be you
know what the Aussies I know of this sort of
(44:28):
sleep on the premises. So well they premises downstairs and
they sleep upstairs or something like that, and that it's
not like a like a proper office. It's it is,
but it's not like could be an apartment.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
A bit of a harb yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
And but the Aussi's over there are pretty fall on,
Like there's a lot of them and there's a lot
of events to go where they're always talking to each
other and committing.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Other people's heaps call stuff like there's like Aussi's in
New York, groups oussies in San fran tech startup alsie
founders in sand There's all these groups and communities to
be a part of. But the feelings a bit different
over there. I feel like people are very willing to
give you a leg.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Up or introduce you to someone introduce you.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
That's the biggest thing. Yeah, totally, And it's not different.
People are a bit sometimes a bit cagy maybe that's the.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Right word, just not as helpful. It's something they're not
as Australians are much more conservative. Australians in America and Americans,
like especially in San Francisco, much more open to helping somebody. Yeah, yeah,
because they expect you to help them back.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yes, totally and never forget.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
It's reciprocation for sure. Yeah, whereas here they don't expect
the reciprocation. Therefore they're sort of loads not loads, but
it's just less regular that they will help you. So yeah,
and I think it's greatly if you start to raise
money though of in the US. So if you if
you go around for the next round, yeah, and you
raise money in the US, there will be an expectation
that you have more permanent premises.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, so because that's the big market. Yeah, people like
you you need a very small percentage of that.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
If we can crack the States, yeah, that'll be that'll
be pretty epic. I mean, at the moment, our subscribers
like Daily obviously Australia was our biggest group signing up.
But now our US subscribers have overtaken. We're getting more
US subscribers per day now than Australia. So it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
So I expect to see you on I don't even
know if she still has a show, Ellen, but I
expect to see you on one of those shows.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I'm trying and look, Allen's off and now, but that's right. Yeah,
I mean, and all the night shows of all a
lot of them have thrown their support behind Love on
the Spectrum. Because you think Love on the Spectrum was
big in Australia, try the US season. It just went crazy.
And so yeah, it'll be interesting. Maybe hopefully we can.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
We can well you and Michael, that'd be great because
obviously his talent, I'm not saying you're not, but he's
incredible talent from the show and is the real deal. Yeah,
Like it's hard for you to you're a you're a
business person and you know one pine the original idea,
but people will get it. So as they listen watch
(47:13):
feel his sense of excitement about it. Yeah, well well done,
Like it's a fantastic. Basically, you're still building a tech
you're really a techy. But at the same time, it's
got all the sort of interesting cool gltty sort of
I've got a bit of Hollywood in it.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, I think it's it's really funny helps and it's Yeah,
it's so cool. I get to come to come to work,
and you know, I'm making a difference, Like I get
to hear from couples that have met on the app
and gone on first dates and new friends, and I
have parents and support workers actually reach out a lot
and tell me what's going on, which is cool. I
get a bit of the gosp But I'm I'm praying
(47:50):
fingers crossed for a wable wedding at some point, but
I'm trying not.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
To get w wable wedding.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, there's gotta be some sort of sponsorship.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Well, I can sort of see lots of case studies
coming over this. So I mean, I imagine your website,
what is it wable dot com or.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yeah yeah, yeah, no, nowhere on the Apple App Store
and androids of Google Play. And we've got our website
and what is it wable dot com, hellowable dot com,
hellowayboard dot how come I couldn't get the wable domain.
Someone's bought it before I did. And I've been just
trying to dispute that fraud.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I mean, it's not even a is that a word
before wable willing, but willing enable or did you make
that up?
Speaker 2 (48:31):
I just made it up. Yeah, yeah, willing and able
and thought wable sounds cool. It sounds like an app.
It's kind of catchy.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Totally stuck from that, but it wasn't available. That's mad. Yeah,
but you're so, you're so what are you again? So
just so anyone's listening, what's according it? No? No, the website, Oh,
the website.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Sorry, it's www. Dot hello, wable, hollow wable. You can
find us on both apps dot com.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, not a okay, well done, Well, good luck and
thank you for having you a lot of interesting a
lot of interesting things you to do from here. I
mean you're going to get pushed and pulled in so
many directions. So you know, sometimes people go, wow, I
can't wait to raise my first three hundred, and they
say I can't wait to raise my second to get
your one half and then and I often think to myself,
(49:13):
you just started, and now it's real.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I'll come back with my
pitch deck once we're scaling in the US for series. Yeah, hey,
so we can chat. We can chat the way.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Well well done. Congratulations By the way, anyone else started
up as anyone else copyed do?
Speaker 2 (49:33):
Yeah, we've had a copycat like that always happens, doesn't it.
You know what, I spent so much time. If any
founders are listening, I'm sure I've listened to your show.
So I spent so much time worrying. Oh my god,
I can't tell anyone because it's going to steal my idea.
Don't worry about it, because if your idea is good
enough and you replicate it well enough, someone somewhere is
(49:53):
going to try and replicate it. And that just that's
just the way it is. But yeah, good luck, try
and move move than I do. I would be impressed.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
So back yourself to be better. But what's interesting about
that is that it sometimes is better to have more
than one player in the market.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Absolutely, you've got to have competitors. And if you go
to a meet with an investor and you say you've
got no competitors, I think they would they would laugh
at you.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Even think what they would also say something, this is
something wrong with the proposition.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yeah, is there even a market or I want or
a need for this. So yeah, you just.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Want to be in a competitive market, be the best competitor.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
That's where a point of difference is always good, you know. Yeah,
And a point of difference whether that's what you're offering
or your business model or something that makes you a
bit different. And then also I think, I mean, you've
probably invested in a few different things, but I think
a lot of the a lot of the feedback is
always the investors investing in the person and the founder
(50:48):
in all the time.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
And it's about it's about you at this stage. Soon
it would be about more about the team. Then as
you get through the various series, it will be about
the customer base.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
They need to know you're crazy to see it through.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah, yeah, well but that's what especially American American versus Yeah,
by the way, pretty good.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
So yeahs across for and that's some of that sweet
US USD at some.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Point, especially dollars a bitter than Australia. Well, very the
best of luck, Holly, I'm well done. And Holly Fowler
the CEO and founder of wable, and you can find
her at hollowable dot com or you can just go
to the wable app, which is available on Apple.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah. Beautiful, Thank you so much, welcome, Thanks very much.
Welcome to the mentor. I'm Mark Boris holy Fellow. Welcome
to the mentor.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thank you thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So you're the CEO and founder of wable or what is?
What's way will Meet? What's a stand for me?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Wave will stands for willing and able, which I think
perfectly describes neurodivergent people all over the world and willing
and able to make connections. Just a bit of a
helping hand for our community.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And also working. You're saying it makes connections, So what
is what does waybill do? What sort of connections you
talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah? Sure, So. Wable is a social networking app built
specifically for the neurodivergent community. So think of it a
place to find dates, friends, jobs, and support all in
one place. So maybe like Tinder and Seek had a baby,
but for neurodivergent people is a good way to describe it.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's interesting you're talk about neurodivergent. Dumb it's a new word,
relatively speaking your word, and it covers a broad base.
What is neurodivergent?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, so neurodivergence and umbrella term. It captures or people
with autism, autistic people, dyslexic people, people with OCD ADHD,
A whole bunch of different neurotypes under that umbrella term neurodivergent.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So maybe it gives it a little you'd obviously know.
I don't know, but you could give maybe a bit
of a history of when that term first started to
be used, because I'm well aware of the thought processing
(01:46):
descriptions of convergent and divergent in terms of how our
brain works as thought processes. Neuro divergent sounds cool, it's
a good sound would but how did that come about? Like,
what's the history that would?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it's an interesting one. I'm not exactly sure when
we started using the word neurodivergent, but when.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Do we start hearing about it?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I think probably more recently, and I think maybe
it's because I think it's because of increased awareness, particularly
around autism here in Australia. We can Akin's Eye can
some of that at least have shows like Love on
the Spectrum, which is obviously where Wabell started, but better
diagnostic measures, more awareness. You know, the draft Autism strategy
(02:34):
at federal government level this year come out in Australia.
So I think neurodivergent captures so many different people. I mean,
it's twenty percent of the population. We hear about rises
in diagnosis for ADHD, and I think it's a nice
way to capture a really important segment of the community.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, well, you obviously got a very big TAM in
relation to this. If we're talking just business. Yeah, you know,
the TAM is the total just re market's quite large. Ye,
seems like it's growing. Investors would be interested in that
in the pure money sense, I guess for sure, But
I just wanted to dig into that a little bit.
(03:12):
I'll come back to love on the spectrum in the moment,
because that's probably what maybe what inspired you to do it,
and sort of the convergence of COVID and in our
country anyway, the sort of further development of Bill Shorten's
(03:37):
indies which sort of got a lot of got more
legs during the pre election period of twenty nineteen, and
the huge allocation of dollars towards that scheme, and then
(03:58):
lots of people got put into this. You're a divergent category.
If I just put out of that category, you know,
people who are autistic actually autistic as opposed to the
broader group. How much impact do you think that changes
in attitude across the world perhaps, but definitely here in
(04:21):
Australia contributed to this twenty percent market. Because if you
had to asked someone that, if I had asked you
prior to that period, that COVID period, how big is
the bots of tail addressable market of you're a divergent people.
Assuming way we both knew what that was, it wouldn't
(04:42):
be anywhere near what it is now like because we
just didn't know. But all of a sudden it's blown up.
It's got really huge. What have we got actually an
emerging problem because there's so many people who are affected
by this that we never knew about in the past
and we're ignoring or is there something that's happened vaccinations,
(05:05):
I don't know, whatever be fast in the world. I
don't know what it is that's that you know about
this maybe contributing to this or is it just a
people who have identified themselves as one of these types
of people and it's sort of becoming a phenotype, you know,
like a you know, I describe myself as this type
(05:26):
of person like a phenotype sense, like you know, someone
might describe themselves a phenotype physically, but other people can
describe themselves in the phenotype of you know, intellectually, I mean,
I'm confused by it all. Actually am you know, what
is the thinking about this? You know? And obviously investors,
you know, you've just done some successful rounds, raise some money.
Obviously investors must be talking about this too. It must
(05:49):
be a global thing.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, So I mean I would reframe away from you know,
seeing more more people identify with neurodivergence is not a problem.
I mean, you're divergence has already been there has been.
People have been autistic for as long as time. But
more people are being diagnosed now there.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Why is it?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, a few things. I think there's better diagnostic tools
these days. I think more people are willing to talk
about it. Yes, there is still an enormous amount of
stigma surrounding autistic people mostly, but I feel like we
are moving in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Has become cool. Yeah, well I don't. I actually don't
think it's stigmatized. Somehow is I don't know why, But
that's that's sort of trying to dig into here. It's
managed to become like I hear people say it, then
it's the you're diversion. They say them on the spectrum,
you know, sort of thing. The show made it cool
because it was a cool, good show, But it's sort
(06:47):
of like cool now. I don't know about another country.
I'm just talking about here. It's nearly like I have
a special power. I'm you're a divergent, whether that whether
that's autistic or just ADHD. Yeah, and I presume ADHD
comes undo the coy. Yeah, absolutely, and even that, I
mean there's degrees of ADHD probably, you know, like, well,
(07:09):
I'm thinking about it, like probably everyone I know has
got ADHD as growing up, I think, But maybe I
had it and maybe I still have it.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Maybe my four sons had it. I don't know, maybe
my grandson's got it. I don't know the answer. But
because I'm not a diagnostic person, but you know, there's
somewhere we pretty much all sit into the category. And
because I'm going to come back to your business model,
because say, how do you feel to that? Of course, yeah,
because that's important because because you don't want impostors getting
(07:37):
in there totally. Yeah, And so if I could just
talk generally about the addressable market and you say it's growing,
which is great for vestors, and it's great for you
in terms of your pitch, But how do you can
sort of compact that and make sure it's you know,
it sounds terrible, but you're not taking advantage of the growth.
I'm not saying you are, but I'm just I don't
(07:59):
seen doing that.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
No, absolutely not. I think the key is that neurodivergent
people have always been looking for a place. Everyone wants
to go to a community and be part of a
community that feels where you feel like you belong, whether
it's your sporting community or your work community. But for
neurodivergent people, especially autistic people, they're not really necessarily looking
(08:21):
for a neurotypical person to date or in their close
friendship circles. But there are a lack of places wheen
you're a divergent people or autistic people primarily can find
one another in a close knit environment, and it was
certainly lacking in modern dating and social apps. So we
feel a niche. But you know, like you say that
the niche is growing, it's a lot of people. And
(08:43):
whilst we say it's neurodivergent people make up to twenty
percent of the population, it's probably more than likely forty
percent and much bigger than that. That's you know, that's
what we know of diagnosed, but it's actually likely a
larger number. And yeah, lots of people going on diagnosis
journeys later in life going like what you just said,
Oh that actually sounds like me, or watching Love on
(09:03):
the Spectrum or here listening to a podcast and going
I struggle with those things as well. Maybe maybe that's
me and going on a diagnosis journey much later in life.
We hear of women over forty being diagnosed with ADHD
at bigger rates. I'm ADHD, so I get it. But yeah,
it's interesting. But I think we are writing a bit
of a wave at the moment. And I think for
(09:26):
me at least, I noticed it really when Love on
the Spectrum came out and people were talking me, yes, yes, yeah,
ABC and now Netflix and they went on to do
a US series which is great, and you know, Lee
Sales heading up a news show on the ABC, The
Assembly with autistic journalists, and so there's so much more
representation in media. I mean, we still have a very
(09:48):
long way to go, but I think we are riding
a wave of hopefully nearing you know, better inclusion, particularly
here in Australia. The States is like another ball game. Obviously,
we've all heard the bits and pieces coming out of America,
and I don't believe there's you know, the whole conversation
(10:08):
around Tyler and Noll and vaccines. I just dismiss entirely
that it's a cause. And I think some of.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
That doesn't matter what the cause is.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
A No, I don't think there is a cause. It's
just neurodivergence is another neurotype. And I think the sooner
that we can accept everyone in the community, the better.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So it should it be called Maybe we shouldn't be
called neurodivergence in maybe maybe you know, if you say
it's just another type.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Well, when you think about it, it's just another another way
of thinking. We all think differently. Why is one scene
as lesser than the other? Or yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Correct? And that's sort of my thing. So I can
understand why autistic people might want to have a social platform,
perhaps particularly people a little bit further along the spectrum
of autism, where they find it socially awkward to socialize
with non autistic people. Therefore, they might find it difficult
(11:07):
to meet appropriate people in their in their lives and
Whi's why I thought that show was a great show
because it was pairing them up sort of thing and
watching watching them understand, you know, how relationships work, and
of someone who thinks similarly to them. Because what I
(11:30):
get I get nervous about these things is, you know,
I'm interested to know what your model does, but making
sure you don't get imposters in there. For sure, could
trying to take advantage of someone who's maybe naive in
a social sense or and or just as a result
(11:53):
of their awkwardness therefore don't understand or don't have the
same comprehension of where a trickster might be or a
confidence person might be. Go like, someone's trying to take
their confidence, steal the confidence, is what I mean? Yeah,
because it's a you know, because we see it. We
said it. On the other it's called dating platforms, I know,
not just to day dating platforms. We see this process
(12:16):
being abused like often on some of the other platforms.
I'm not going to mention them, but and I'm just
curious as to know how you what is your software
do and we'll talk about that in the moment. I
think that's really for me, it's most interesting thing about
your platform. I get the title just market, I get
(12:39):
all that. I get that there definitely would be a need,
is a need I probably what I want to come
back to that, because this is the mentor show is about,
you know, business owners. I want to come back to those.
What inspired you and what was your what did you
do prior to doing this, and why did you decide
(13:00):
maybe I'll build a social platform for this part of society.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah, sure, well I could take you way back to
at the beginning. But yeah, prior to this, I had
a I you know, entrepreneurship wasn't necessarily on my vision
board by any means. It maybe happened by accident. But
I used to work in media, so I.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Did as a journalist sort of.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I did sports presenting, so I was a boundary writer
for the a AFL.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Games with se Boundary Rider.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, like on the boundary reporting. So I'm a big
sports and I love I love sport, I love AFL
and I had a breakfast show with s CN for
a little while and at a great time. Yeah yeah,
so used to being behind the mic, but not not
as much talking about business, more about sport and that
kind of thing. But after that I worked in PR
and marketing, so which has been an advantage much later on.
(13:56):
But I didn't know it. But yeah, of course lockdown hit.
I'm a Melbour girl, so I suspend.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You guys were lockdown.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, yes, lockdown for the we were the most lockdown
city I think in the world. I don't remember which
lockdown it was, maybe number five or six. But of
course I came across Love on the Spectrum, which at
the time was first hit the ABC, and Michael Theo
was a breakout star really from the show. He's hails
from Wollongong. I think he's in Sydney today actually, but
(14:23):
it was off filming. He's doing amazing things. But Michael's autistic,
and we got to watch his first date on the
show and witness his tenacity in search of love despite
the challenges he faces as an autistic person.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And I was just so, did you just explain to
me what they are? Because I remember I don't remember,
I don't remember him specifically. Yeah, but what would the
challenges be you mean outside of another person with autism,
do you mean like with the person who's non autistic.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, sure, Well, look, every you know, if you meet
one person that's autistic. You meet one person and that's autistic.
But you know, so everyone's challenges are different. But some
of the challenges that experienced often you know, regulating some emotions,
reading other people's body language, and you know, like we
(15:16):
always say, a lot of autistic people don't pick up
on sarcasm and things like that. So when it comes
to meeting someone, I mean, yeah, those sorts of things.
But when it comes to meeting someone for the first time,
particularly in a date setting or making new friends, it
can be hard to initiate and maintain that connection in
the first point, especially with someone that might not understand
(15:36):
some of the ways that you think like all of us.
And yeah, a lot of heightened anxiety around sort of
those situations compared to a neurotypical person. But to be honest,
I think neurotypical or neurodivergent, a first date setting or
making new friends comes with a bit of anxiety for anyone,
I think, at least speaking from personal experience.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
And how did Michael go in that that serious It was.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
A series of yeah, it was, I mean, he's amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Recall.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, they set up like kind of like speed dating
type settings and then once they find matches that they
might like to sort of continue on with, the producers
will set them up on a date. And the Australian
producer has gone on to produce the US another series
Key and he's amazing, and yeah, so Michael we got
to see he's Michael is a true gentleman and all
(16:26):
he's ever wanted for his whole life is a to
be an actor and be to find a girlfriend, and
thankfully now he's found both. But he he's just such
a lover, but a real gentleman, and so we got
to see that on the show, and of course everyone
fell in love with him. So once the show ended,
he went on Ellen in America. I think Kim Kardashian
(16:47):
posted about him or something, and.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
He's off the Australier show.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, and his profile just why would they be watching
Love on the Spectrum or how would they get to
know him? Well, well, social media as well was big one.
But Ellen degenerous somehow saw Michael. Perhaps she watched the
show or one of her producers. I'm not exactly sure
how it happened, but he wound up on Ellen and
(17:13):
it was just crazy like this, this guy from Wollongong
that we didn't know about is now all over screens
in the US, and then obviously the US season came later.
But I think maybe it captured the world's attention at
the right time. We weren't talking about neurodivergence as much then,
and I think it probably was a lot of people's
introduction to I knew sort of what autism was, but
(17:36):
I hadn't really seen seen it in the media or
seen autistic people dating. And I think it was really
new and captured a lot of people's hearts. So I
was on my couch and thought, oh, I was using
a few dating and social apps at the time, and
I thought, this is hard for anyone in a time
as well where everyone's feeling a bit lonely in COVID
(17:58):
and you know, crazy in human connection that's all everyone wants.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
But because most of the dating apps will great to
be honestly, that were paying the ass, so you know,
and then you're probably thinking of yourself, well, like, there's
dating apps for me, and they're not they're not perfect,
you know they you know, you can run into a
brick wall quite often, and you probably did. You think
you must be terrible for a person who's on the spectrum.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Well, I just thought this has got to be even harder,
and I just DMed Michael on Instagram and I said, look,
you don't even know who I am, but holy I've
got this idea. I'm thinking about building an app for
particularly autistic people, but later on captured neurodivergent community. I
want to connect autistic people for dating, friendship, and jobs,
(18:44):
because unfortunately, the autistic community is severely underrepresented in the
workplace as well, despite being like neurodivergent people being some
of the brightest minds and creatives on the planet. But
and I really wanted to do something. So when I
told Michael, he was like, oh my god, we've been
waiting for someone to do this. If you do it,
please get me involved. And then I spoke to Michael's mum,
(19:08):
who plays a really important role in his life as
well and such a great support for him. And then
I spoke with psychologists and counselors and occupational therapists and
everyone was just saying, why isn't why isn't this happening already?
You've got to do it. So I don't know if
it's it's inherently been in me always or maybe it's
(19:29):
a bit of the ADHD. But once I get stuck
on an idea, I have to see it through. I've
become very obsessed. I became obsessed with this and I
was going to see it through one way or another,
and I did.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
So what's the first thing you do when you're yeah,
let's forget about for a second the cohort of you
know who you're trying to talk to. But what was
the first thing you did? Do you think of a
business name? Did you think of the tech that you
the stack you got to put together, or what you do?
(20:04):
And do you remember the time and place or not
the time, but where you were when you thought, yep,
I'm doing this. Did you make desay only my job?
Did you do it as a side.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Hustle No, so I did it as a side hustle
for a while, and no one knew about it.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Except in stealth.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I did it in stealth, yeah, which I sometimes regret.
I you know, the whole everyone has that sort of
build in public thing. Now you see a lot of
founder content building in public. And I, if I could
go back, I probably would have documented more than what
I did. But I was, you know, I had a
really good job, and I was, you know, getting paid
by great companies to do the job. And I didn't
(20:39):
want anyone to think I wasn't committed to that either,
because I respect that. So I was building it in
the night. I'd sort of start work at you know,
eight till five and then go home and work from
have dinner, and work from you know, seven thirty till
three am for probably a good couple of years. To
get a cold.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
It could actually holly like because that's massive commitments. So
during that period, so we're talking this COVID.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Period, Yeah, COVID period.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
So we're talking to say, three or four years ago.
During that period, often people say to me, how can
you do that? How can anyone do that? Have the job,
then do the side hustle and work those hours, you know,
whatever time and night you're doing that. Then get up
in the morning and go perhaps go to the gym,
perhaps not, then go to work and then do your
(21:27):
job and then et cetera. How do you how did
you fit into that period social life? So I don't
know what your relationships were without a bloke or not.
What don't have to be a blow could be a female.
But did you have a partner during that period. Did
you go to gym? What did you have to sacrifice
(21:47):
or nothing at all? Maybe you're able to fit everything in.
I don't know, a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, yeah, sacrificed a lot. Or even when I was
trying to get a bit of a social life, I
was pretty run down and kind of not very present.
Like it does take a lot, I mean, and you know,
we launched last year, so that's a good four years.
A lot happens in four years in someone's life. I
had a break up when I was starting the business,
and you just have to keep there's no time to
(22:13):
just like kind of grumble and with you know, personal
challenges or challenges. No, no, not not a cause of it,
but certainly like yeah, now I've got a partner who
really understands this sort of world. But it takes a
different kind of beast to be with. I think a
startup founder as well, because a lot of your time
and attention is certainly on the growth of your business.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
You know, if we're just dig into that, because I
think a lot of aspirational people who listen to the
show and or people are in the startup phase, you know,
they think that it's a pretty lonely place doing these
sorts of things. It is, because so what happens with
your what did you decide to do save for your mates?
From you? I presume it's good Melbourne somewhere. Yeah, so
(22:59):
you have your schoolmate, it's probably you know, they're all
got a job like you had, but therefore finished at
five and on Friday night every month, they probably are
going to have a dinner together and again maybe a
few drinks, so I'll forget dancing whatever karaoke? Did you
make a Is it hard to keep together with that
group of mates? And if you were successful at it,
(23:22):
what mechanisms did you use to keep it like that?
Or did you just make a hard decision say well,
I'm going to have to sacrifice that because I'm so
passionate about this. Yeah, wable thing.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah. I think I'm really lucky in that my friends
and family and I built a lot of this during
the time as a single person, so that that I
just had that to focus on as well. So a
lot of it is quite lonely and isolating. But I
suppose I was like, in my mind, okay, I really
just have to knuckle down on this, and what's you know,
(23:55):
a couple of years in the span of my whole lifetime.
But then too, you know, you turn into two and
three into four and this will this is life now
for a long time. But I my friends are people
that were like, I really believe in what you're doing
as well, and I soo see the vision. I know
you have to you know, a lot of things have
to go on the back burner, and I'm lucky that
(24:16):
the people in my life were like, you know, Holly Zann,
She'll be there as much as she can. But if
I have to dip out early from something, it's it's
understood and not sort of shamed upon.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But I maybe, like, did you lose connections?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
No, not necessarily, I think I may. I just maybe
for some periods probably wasn't myself, Like I was pretty
stressed out in the first couple of years, so when
I was out, it comes at a cost. When you're
at dinner you're thinking, I actually felt like a level
of guilt sometimes being about going, yeah, I shouldn't be here.
(24:49):
My phone's going off from developers going can you approve this?
What's the password for this? Can you do this? And
I'm thinking, oh shit, sorry for my last square on
this podcast quite like I need to get out of here,
you know, like everywhere I would go thinking this is
time I could be spending on work, even though obviously
you need to have time away. But Yeah, for me
(25:09):
in particular, it's something I've really struggled with. I still
struggle with now. Is that guilt on myself? Like, Holly,
you know where you should be? It shouldn't be here
for dinner, you know, probably to a maybe an unhealthy level. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah, so in other words, but you're able to justify
it by your mission, so to speak. And if I
just let's just park that for a second. And then
in terms of you're you're involved in media, yep, but
all of a sudden, you're the main part of execution
(25:44):
on your idea is you know, some sort of tech stack.
How do you learn about that sort of stuff? Because
I mean, I presume what's happening is you're using your
salary to fund developers and all that sort of stuff. Yeah,
but you know, you're you're running the show, so you
can't let them run off and do whatever they feel
like doing. You have to sort of give them the
(26:04):
architecture around it all. How did you learn about these things.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, well in the beginning phase, like you say, you
put what you can in, you work your job, you
take your pay and you do what you can. And
I remember building like the wire frames with the team,
but really asking people so I start. When I started,
I was like where do I I'm literally googling how
do I start? Happ But I listened to a sports
(26:28):
podcast and listened to James Hurd, who was obviously coach
out at Essendon and I didn't know this but he was.
He's on the board at the time of a startup
in the dating app space, and so because all my
connections were with sport, I went, oh, well, I'll just
talk to him. So weirdly enough, James Hurd was the
first person I ever pitched wable Too as an idea,
(26:51):
and he said, look, I can't invest because it's a
conflict of interest, but I want to introduce you to
the CEO and founder of the company that I'm involved
with and chat to chat to the founders they're Perth
based and get a sense from their idea and it's
I think that the tech sort of startup scene in
(27:11):
Australia is really good because I've that first conversation. Those
founders were so willing to help. Here's the things you've
got to look out for. This is what good tech is,
this is what bad tech is. How do I raise money?
Do I go private investors? Do I go VC? Do
I crowdsource fun? What do I? What do I do?
Because there's so many options. So actually speaking to other
founders in a similar space at the start was key
(27:33):
for me because once I got the tech stack and
a contract and all those sorts of things, I was
able to have people to bounce those ideas off without
paying them, just to help another founder out. At the time,
we had no idea where to start.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Did you develop your own tech stack or did you
get an IT person in, like a senior dev person?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yes, so we had a senior dev build our first
version of.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
The app and local Australian.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
We had a mix, so we had We've had Australian
based and overseas as well, so that with teams that
have worked together and they're amazing. I actually thought about
bringing somebody in house, but our outsource team that we've
used to date have felt like an extension of our team,
so I haven't ran into the issue. But yeah, I mean,
it's hard. Like I was learning. I was learning the
(28:20):
tech side of things from on the run. But when
I started getting really serious and I was like, right,
I'm running out of money here. I'm about eighty percent
of the build through the app. I don't know how
I'm going to finish this, so I need to find investors.
I approached Primary Markets actually out of Sydney and their
chair Jamie Green. It was the first person I spoke to,
(28:43):
aside from Hurdy of course, who couldn't invest. Sorry you
missed opportunity, heard he. But he wouldn't mind me saying that.
But Jamie was like, look, primary Markets helps startups raise money,
but I'm actually really interested in this myself. Fuse on
the spectrum. Can I introduce you to some friends of mine?
(29:04):
Then the next time I'm on the phone with one
of his friends, who's now my chairman, Craig Mason. He's like, yeah,
I've got a few kids and a couple of them
are autistic. I so get this space and these are
you know, Jamie, And Jamie's a lawyer by Trey, Craig's
chairman of another ASX listed business. They know sort of
what to do and they're like, well, how much money
(29:25):
do you need? I was like, I don't know. I
just need to finish this. What do I do? How
do I start? And that's when we formed a board
of a board of three, and thankfully with that came
a CTO from one of Craig's other businesses, and all
of a sudden, I had a pretty nice team around
me or willing to help and also put in some
cash to get me going.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
So your first round was like a preceed and your
first round is like not friends and family, but in.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
A sense Jamie Craig's friends and family. I was very lucky.
And you know, with that round, we got company secretaries
on the cap table and lawyers. All of a sudden,
I'm cutting all these costs. It's really important to get money,
but if you can get smart money with people with
skills that you don't have, that's the best thing I've
ever done. So I raised three hundred grand and that
(30:13):
got me to launch.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And one of the things that often perplexes a lot
of people is that three hundred grand doesn't sound much,
but it's actually quite a lot because it can actually
buy a lot of help. But two things arise from that.
The first thing is investors probably want you now to
be full time on the deal, which means you've got
to leave your job. And then they say then and
(30:35):
of course you've got to get paid so because that
no one wants you to be struggling economically. So they
first thing is say, well, how much do you need?
So you have to work out of the three hundred,
how much you're going to take. And the second thing,
of the three hundred that you've received, you've got to
give way some equity and you've got to put evaluation
on the table. How did you deal with those two things?
And you know, what's a general rule that audiences can
(30:58):
think about you might have experienced as to what's a
fair amount of money that you take out of the
three hundred?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. But you're right. Once I'd raised
the money, everyone was asking, hey, when are you quitting
and going full time?
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Of course it's nearly as Nelly condition presoner.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, And you know what I actually thought it was
the opposite, Like, because I didn't know this world, I thought, oh,
the investors are going to really want all the money
to stay in the business, not going to want it
to go out to wages and that's what I thought,
just so naive about the whole process really at the beginning,
and they were like, no, no, no, we want you
full time on the business, which I was so excited about.
But it was scary because I was used to you know,
(31:37):
this is a guaranteed wage all the time. You've have
all this you know, structure, and you come to work
and you go home and there's a level of comfort
in that. But startup is pretty brutal and you start
burning cash and going okay, we better get raising again
because this is this is pretty full.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
What did you pick? What did you just sort of
settle on?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, so we said no, no, of course we said
it on. It was about three point five our first
raise and three point five million, three point five yeah,
pri so we.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
So you raise three hundred thousand first.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Three hundred thousand, Yeah, so that did you take a wage? Yes, Yes,
I took a wage, yeah, one hundred Yeah, I took
one hundred grand.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
And that I'm very.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Open about because that's usually for the audience, that's usually
the right number.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah. Yeah, Well what I said to and our team's
very open with each other. You know that I was
on that wage previously. And they're like, well, you need
to live comfortably. We don't want you to be stressed
out of your mind, going how am I going to eat?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I don't want that?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
And so that, you know, that was always a pretty.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Open and then how do you work out what you
give away? Like so like you've got to say to that,
and generally speaking, you know, my experience in these things
is the investor doesn't really care about what they do,
but they don't really care about the valuation of that
they're coming in and they're more interested in what that
three hundred thousand dollars can take the too totally. Yeah, Yeah,
(33:02):
it's a relative game. Like if I got ten percent
of something, you know, let's three and it gives me
ten percent because of therefore was worth three million. I'm
only going I'm going to invest in because you're going
to convince me that the three hundred thousand you give
me is going to make you thing worth six millions.
So really, yeah, three hundred thousand doubles, Yeah, exactly, that's
that's the story. Yeah, because I'm going to struggle with what,
how could be worth three million when it's not even built?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yes, yeah, Well, and to be honest, we didn't have
pushback really on valuation at the start. I think what
we argued on and of course lucky that I had
guidance from our border have done razors for other businesses
and all that kind of thing. But you know, we
pretty much completed the tech, we were almost there. I
had Michael lined up as an ambassador already, so I
(33:44):
knew that with Michael as an ambassador, we were going
to get huge reach, and we did. The day we launched,
we had a current Affair Today's show. Then I've gone
Forbes thirty under thirty like the pr just went nuts,
really because we had a great story and it was
good timing. Then we had a couple that fell in
love on the app, and then that was on the
project just before they went off air. So I knew,
(34:04):
I've got a brilliant ambassador spokesperson for the idea. I've
got the tech almost built, eighty percent, run out of money,
really need that money. You've got an ambitious founder me
that's going to go full time. We had a board
at that point with a lawyer Craig chairman. We had
resources already around the business, and we'd had trademarking already
(34:25):
done by that stage. So I'd trademarked wable in Australia
and New Zealand, and so we could argue that we
had some intellectual property there already, we'd I'd built up
a weight list, so I'm like, right, well I have
a weight list of people that will will download this
thing when we go to law. Yeah, so proof of concept.
And like you say, the addressable market is massive. And
(34:45):
I think I was saying the other day if we'd
launched wable maybe five years ago, I don't know that
we would have had their attraction we've had, but we're
coming in. I think timing has been I'm not going
to say, well maybe lucky. There's a bit of lock
in it too, but the timing around the conversation and
what we're doing has married up.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Really. It was a rising type for this stuff. Yeah,
for this service, Yeah, dash product. So do you mind
ask if you don't want to say it's okay, but
what did you have to wait to get the three
hundred grand?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Oh? I need to pull up I need to pull
up my cap table. I'll come back to you what
we what we gave up? But no, it was always
I know for a fact, it was always really important
to our board to retain equity for the for the founder,
and of course in Australia, if if I, if I
retain a good amount of equity as a female in tech,
(35:38):
there's actually quite a lot of support that I can offer.
But if you dilute yourself so far out as the
female founder, a lot of those doors close on you
because they don't want to a lot of you know,
grants and things aren't interested in investing in you. If
in government grants, yeah, government grants and all that kind
of thing. If if you, as the female founder is diluted,
(35:59):
I out so thankfully I've got still a good little
slice of the pie. Even after having just completed our
second raise of one point five.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
So you recently raised, raised again, raised again not here?
Where was it in a America or in Australia?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, yep, So we raised one point five million, this
time at six point five pre so.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Pre raised, pre money, pree money.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
So what that means, people listening, is that the enterprise
value before the money comes in a six point five.
You raised one point five, which means post money that
things worth eighty I ssureing they gave you cash as
opposed to a contra or whatever. So it's now an
eight million dollar val on enterprise valuation and you and
(36:46):
you raised it in Australia. So maybe just for our
audience if you just give us a bit of an idea.
But did you appoint somebody to do the raise for you,
like to lead it for you? Or did you have
to did your first lot of investors have to reinvest?
I wanted to convince the second lot of investors that
it's worth investing. And how that will work.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
It's all about finding a lead. Like until I had
a lead, I got a lot of come back and
speak to me when you've got a lead.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
One.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
No one ever likes to draw the first the first hand,
I suppose, and there's a reason the hardest.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, especially the smaller checks. They'd like to know that
someone's done the work on.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It totally, someone.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
With reputation, and people will often just follow someone else in,
Like someone puts half a million in normally for something
like that, you know, leads half half a million dollars
for example, and all smaller checks fifties, hundreds, they go, well,
they've done the work. I'll follow them in. So that's
a bit of a momentum thing. Is that sort of
(37:43):
what happened to your case? Yes? Yeah, sorry, how'd you
find lead? Then?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
It took a while, but through so I got an
investor in out of Melbourne that I just knew through
connections and she was like, oh, I want to introduce
you to a few people I know. And one of
them was Tourist Capital out of Perth and once.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I health tic what are they?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
A bit of everything? They have a big their own
sort of investment group, yeah, and mandate.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
So I.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Sat down with them, and I sat down with Paul
who works there, and for about an hour we had
coffee and by the end of the coffee he was like,
I mean, we're gonna We're going to find you the money.
So but that was after probably it must must have
been something like nine ten months of me pitching, like
coming to Sydney, pitching to I've done vcs, family offices,
(38:36):
angel investors. There's not a lot of people I haven't
met and pitched too. But that's good because even if
you get to know if I'm coming back again, they
already know me. But yeah, I mean it was tough,
like raising money is no easy feed, I think, and
I thought you know, I've got traction, I've got customers,
(38:58):
I've got'm jenny rating, revenue tick tick ticking, all the
things that you think investors look for. But of course
when you're asking for a bigger check, it's longer. Like
our first raise was actually relative. I hate saying this,
but it was easy. I think everyone is pretty apprecreat
idea yeah kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
It's an idea race.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, yeah, let's see what happens, you know. And then
and I thought, no, now we've got traction, it'll be
it'll be fine, it'll be easy.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
It wasn't. The second race. The seed round, like the
second after the first round, is harder because you've actually
got something which they can now check and they can
see and they can start doing numbers and extrap late
out to the future and say, well, on that basis
we can now we don't believe that you'll get people
(39:45):
to sign up. But how much of the month, how
much she's charging per month for.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
So we charge fourteen ninety nine now for a premium subscription,
but you can also download and use it as a
free yeah, preemium model, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, But I mean, once you're n you've got problem
with that is you've got actually concrete things sitting in
front of you, compared to when you raise the roundred
where people can start to try to do risk their investment.
So they start questioning, questioning those those inputs, those variables.
Will people pay forty ninety nine? Can you tell us
have you done some research to say you can do
(40:16):
forty nine and nine? In the moment you say yes,
I have, then all of a sudden there's something else
that they can start to pull apart. No, well, but
I don't believe that. I don't agree with that or
the it wasn't broad enough. You're right, it is harder.
It is harder, and the next one to be harder again.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Oh yeah, so you've.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Done a preceed you're want a seed and you do
a series A. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Well, it's interesting some people kind of because of the
stage of I suppose traction and stuff. Where we're at
with everyone, like, we've sort of argued that this was
kind of series A, and maybe the first one was
more more seed. We probably kind of skipped a pre
It doesn't mean the pre seed sort of thing. It
doesn't suppose it's the stage of business.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
So it might have been the preceed yourself yet.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, say we're closed series A. So yeah, it's exciting.
And now it's just we just launched the app in
the US and the UK. I've just spent three weeks
over in the state, so yeah, back, I think I've
been home for four days and then come on a
plane to see you. So it's great. Yeah, got a
break from the airport and then come to see you.
(41:15):
So no, it was really cool. And everything just moves
so quick in the US. I mean, obviously it was
an interesting time to be over there in this space,
but we it was crazy. I've been like chasing media
with our PR team to try and get the word
out there. And I had just had a random day
in New York where I got a billboard up in
(41:35):
Times Square, and I'd been chasing a bunch of media
and one of them was Daily Mail in the US
because they have a huge, yeah, a ridiculous amount of
millions of people reading, and I had we'd had some
interests before I left in potentially covering US. But you know,
things always take a bit longer than you want them
to anyway, So I snapped a picture of the billboard
(41:58):
in Times Grand we sent it off to them, and
then within the next hour he's like, yep, so are
you free for an interviewer an hour and then I
was in a cab in New York on the phone
to Daily Mail and it was up the hour after that.
So things do move pretty quickly and it's good timing,
and it was it was really cool to see the
states and now, yeah, seeing people sign up in America
(42:19):
is pretty crazy. So yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
So you've got your so wable's now raised. Yeap, what
have you called series eight? Doesn't matter? You raise one
enough minute. You've got a reasonably good valuation at eight.
You've been out of four or five years now probably
you know, pretty much close to four years for sure.
You're up and running. You got your stack build, and
(42:42):
you've got revenues. Because you are, you have got subscribers.
To speak, how many subscribers you've.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Got, So we got about twelve thousand now and that
was we haven't started any marketing, so are they all
paid or not all paid? About ten percent paid at
the moment, so it's pretty good conversion so far. But
that's on zero marketing, so generic word of mouth our
pr that we at the start just got because it
was a good story. So now the attention is really
(43:09):
ramping up the marketing side of the business and hiring.
So I finally get some helps.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
You can build a team now, like a team that's
not external or oursourcing, it's actually your own team. And
where are you based? Where do they want you to
be based?
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Well, based in Melbourne at the moment, I'll go back
and forth probably until back and forth, back and forth
between the States and Melbourne.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
And then we're in the United States.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, yeah, United States, of course, so I should have
said that, but yeah, so and then I do want
to hire some people in this in the United States.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
It's which stated we're talking about now where you are
in San Francisco where, Yeah, that's what I'm.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Looking at the moment. It's the hiring laws and everything
is a bit confusing. I'm trying to navigate all that
and where all the sort of hot spots are. I mean,
San France is such obviously the tech spot of the world.
There's some cool little pockets out and even like Boston's
now a bit of a hot spot for startups. But yeah,
thinking sand fran would probably be a good place.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
So just a lot of asi there.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yeah, heaps of assies heaps.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
And in La but San Francisca definitely, and and it's
not cheap there, but it's not too bad either relatively speaking.
So but you'll probably have to set up with some
sort of not a lab but la premises and you know,
you will do the usual thing where you'll be you
know what the Aussies I know of this sort of
(44:28):
sleep on the premises. So well they premises downstairs and
they sleep upstairs or something like that, and that it's
not like a like a proper office. It's it is,
but it's not like could be an apartment.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
A bit of a harb yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
And but the Aussi's over there are pretty fall on,
Like there's a lot of them and there's a lot
of events to go where they're always talking to each
other and committing.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Other people's heaps call stuff like there's like Aussi's in
New York, groups oussies in San fran tech startup alsie
founders in sand There's all these groups and communities to
be a part of. But the feelings a bit different
over there. I feel like people are very willing to
give you a leg.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Up or introduce you to someone introduce you.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
That's the biggest thing. Yeah, totally, And it's not different.
People are a bit sometimes a bit cagy maybe that's the.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Right word, just not as helpful. It's something they're not
as Australians are much more conservative. Australians in America and Americans,
like especially in San Francisco, much more open to helping somebody. Yeah, yeah,
because they expect you to help them back.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yes, totally and never forget.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
It's reciprocation for sure. Yeah, whereas here they don't expect
the reciprocation. Therefore they're sort of loads not loads, but
it's just less regular that they will help you. So yeah,
and I think it's greatly if you start to raise
money though of in the US. So if you if
you go around for the next round, yeah, and you
raise money in the US, there will be an expectation
that you have more permanent premises.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, so because that's the big market. Yeah, people like
you you need a very small percentage of that.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
If we can crack the States, yeah, that'll be that'll
be pretty epic. I mean, at the moment, our subscribers
like Daily obviously Australia was our biggest group signing up.
But now our US subscribers have overtaken. We're getting more
US subscribers per day now than Australia. So it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
So I expect to see you on I don't even
know if she still has a show, Ellen, but I
expect to see you on one of those shows.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I'm trying and look, Allen's off and now, but that's right. Yeah,
I mean, and all the night shows of all a
lot of them have thrown their support behind Love on
the Spectrum. Because you think Love on the Spectrum was
big in Australia, try the US season. It just went crazy.
And so yeah, it'll be interesting. Maybe hopefully we can.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
We can well you and Michael, that'd be great because
obviously his talent, I'm not saying you're not, but he's
incredible talent from the show and is the real deal. Yeah,
Like it's hard for you to you're a you're a
business person and you know one pine the original idea,
but people will get it. So as they listen watch
(47:13):
feel his sense of excitement about it. Yeah, well well done,
Like it's a fantastic. Basically, you're still building a tech
you're really a techy. But at the same time, it's
got all the sort of interesting cool gltty sort of
I've got a bit of Hollywood in it.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, I think it's it's really funny helps and it's Yeah,
it's so cool. I get to come to come to work,
and you know, I'm making a difference, Like I get
to hear from couples that have met on the app
and gone on first dates and new friends, and I
have parents and support workers actually reach out a lot
and tell me what's going on, which is cool. I
get a bit of the gosp But I'm I'm praying
(47:50):
fingers crossed for a wable wedding at some point, but
I'm trying not.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
To get w wable wedding.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, there's gotta be some sort of sponsorship.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Well, I can sort of see lots of case studies
coming over this. So I mean, I imagine your website,
what is it wable dot com or.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yeah yeah, yeah, no, nowhere on the Apple App Store
and androids of Google Play. And we've got our website
and what is it wable dot com, hellowable dot com,
hellowayboard dot how come I couldn't get the wable domain.
Someone's bought it before I did. And I've been just
trying to dispute that fraud.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I mean, it's not even a is that a word
before wable willing, but willing enable or did you make
that up?
Speaker 2 (48:31):
I just made it up. Yeah, yeah, willing and able
and thought wable sounds cool. It sounds like an app.
It's kind of catchy.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Totally stuck from that, but it wasn't available. That's mad. Yeah,
but you're so, you're so what are you again? So
just so anyone's listening, what's according it? No? No, the website, Oh,
the website.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Sorry, it's www. Dot hello, wable, hollow wable. You can
find us on both apps dot com.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, not a okay, well done, Well, good luck and
thank you for having you a lot of interesting a
lot of interesting things you to do from here. I
mean you're going to get pushed and pulled in so
many directions. So you know, sometimes people go, wow, I
can't wait to raise my first three hundred, and they
say I can't wait to raise my second to get
your one half and then and I often think to myself,
(49:13):
you just started, and now it's real.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I'll come back with my
pitch deck once we're scaling in the US for series. Yeah, hey,
so we can chat. We can chat the way.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Well well done. Congratulations By the way, anyone else started
up as anyone else copyed do?
Speaker 2 (49:33):
Yeah, we've had a copycat like that always happens, doesn't it.
You know what, I spent so much time. If any
founders are listening, I'm sure I've listened to your show.
So I spent so much time worrying. Oh my god,
I can't tell anyone because it's going to steal my idea.
Don't worry about it, because if your idea is good
enough and you replicate it well enough, someone somewhere is
(49:53):
going to try and replicate it. And that just that's
just the way it is. But yeah, good luck, try
and move move than I do. I would be impressed.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
So back yourself to be better. But what's interesting about
that is that it sometimes is better to have more
than one player in the market.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Absolutely, you've got to have competitors. And if you go
to a meet with an investor and you say you've
got no competitors, I think they would they would laugh
at you.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Even think what they would also say something, this is
something wrong with the proposition.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yeah, is there even a market or I want or
a need for this. So yeah, you just.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Want to be in a competitive market, be the best competitor.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
That's where a point of difference is always good, you know. Yeah,
And a point of difference whether that's what you're offering
or your business model or something that makes you a
bit different. And then also I think, I mean, you've
probably invested in a few different things, but I think
a lot of the a lot of the feedback is
always the investors investing in the person and the founder
(50:48):
in all the time.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
And it's about it's about you at this stage. Soon
it would be about more about the team. Then as
you get through the various series, it will be about
the customer base.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
They need to know you're crazy to see it through.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah, yeah, well but that's what especially American American versus Yeah,
by the way, pretty good.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
So yeahs across for and that's some of that sweet
US USD at some.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Point, especially dollars a bitter than Australia. Well, very the
best of luck, Holly, I'm well done. And Holly Fowler
the CEO and founder of wable, and you can find
her at hollowable dot com or you can just go
to the wable app, which is available on Apple.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah. Beautiful, Thank you so much, welcome, Thanks very much.
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CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com