A Sounder Life Episode 5 with Shaun QUINCEY

Episode Transcript
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John Holt (00:27):
Well Kia Ora and welcome to episode five of a
sounder life. So glad you couldjoin us. It's been some time
since episode four with RayleneCastle, which we actually
launched in December 2022.
Nearly a year ago now, turns outthere's quite a bit more to
producing these podcasts, letalone ensuring that they stay
regular. So I think we'regetting there for me in a number

(00:49):
of things off my plate now.
So back at it again, recordingepisode five. And for those of
you who did listen to episodefour and would recommend it to
others if there wasn't John'sannoying 16 minute preamble, I
have good news. I have rereleased that episode is episode

(01:09):
4.5. And the very Harry Pottertype Wait, but just a tiny
intro, I promise and then therest is Raylene and I have a
good old chat about all thingssport, her career and views on
impostor syndrome, amongst otherthings, and that discussion
around impostor syndromeabsolutely loved. And there's a
new phrase there, which I thinkwe could all do well to consider

(01:32):
taking on instead of this ratherominous, imposter syndrome
phrase that we we generallyrefer to when we're talking
about people feeling like theyreally shouldn't be in the room,
and a new role for thingsreally. Which premise brings me
to today's episode, my guest isSean Quincy, CEO and founder of

(01:54):
something which we'll learn moreabout as we cheer. Sean's a
multi exit sounder serialfounder, epic long distance
rower and all around goodfellow.
KAs such a pleasure and aprivilege to have Sean join me
for the relaunch of a sounderlife. He's a very humble chair,
given his achievements and workand adventure. And I just

(02:16):
learned about another facet ofsuccess that he's had along the
way. And great stories everytime we chat. So we cover a lot
of ground at just over an houron this podcast, starting with
an incredible recap of his highsand lows around his trans Tasman
adventure, and move on to theparallels around that to the ups

(02:38):
and downs of startup life. So Ihope you find the inspiration
and information from listeningto our chat. I certainly did,
thanks to our sponsor to threethree key relating paid,
reimagined, which is goingthrough another reimagination of
which this podcast experiment ispart. More on that later. But if
you do like what you hear,please do let others know. And

(03:01):
like a sound life on Spotify orApple podcasts. And if you're
really feeling generous, drop usa comment or feedback to me
directly John, territory threedot community. So thanks very
much for listening and onto theshow with Sean Quincy.

(03:22):
Kia ora . This is John. And I'mwith Sean Quincy.

Shaun (03:27):
John. Good to be here.
Thanks for having me.

John Holt (03:28):
We are sitting in the icehouse Thank you, Simon and
the Icehouse team for lending usthe London room. We've taken all
the pens and Whiteboard stuffthat we could fit in our bags.
Really, please record. I'mreally excited about this mate
because it is the resurgence ofa thing I started in December

(03:48):
last year. Awesome. So sound alife. That's what you're on. I
will report a briefintroduction. Secretly not the
16 minutes I did last time I'vejust completed waffle, having
listened to when we interviewedRaylan Castle, right. And I'm
sorry, we wasted 16 minutes ofyour life there. Apologize for
that. But yeah, sound life whatit's about sound. It stands for

(04:14):
serial founder. And that wasreferring to me, but I'm
actually in the presence of aserial founder as well today,
which was pretty cool. Sowelcome, Shawn, for those of you
listening from further afield inNew Zealand, many of you in our
territory three system will knowShawn very, very well. And I'm
gonna get him to tell us alittle bit about himself. But I

(04:36):
do have a very cool biographyhere, which will be available on
the podcast episode. And there'ssome key points here and make
the thing. I think the firsttime I met you was in the
cumulating pet. When you hate asa skier who needs to stop
smiling in the corner and comingout in a debit succeed. Yes,
yeah. Startup summit and likequite a big company.

Shaun (04:57):
Yeah, well, it was great.
successful company and that wasawesome.

John Holt (05:02):
They would dig into that. And so that's where we
meet and, you know, a lot ofsuccesses and a lot of stories
and a few beers since then. Soit's good to have you here.
Yeah. ticular versus really theSIP chat, right. It's run and
gun style as I sit here becauseI capital that needed to get.
And we've, we've definitely hadto talk about some topics we
want to help. But I'm going tohand over to you and just, it

(05:25):
was short.

Shaun (05:26):
Also, all thanks for having me. It's one of my
biggest passions is sharingfounder stories and the ups and
the downs and hoping that alittle bit of that knowledge
filled tracks through to someother people and some of it will
be helpful and some of it willbe totally useless. But you
know, hopefully people peoplecan look so. Shan Shan Quincy
has that first job as a dad andhusband. A lot more little kids

(05:50):
and love being a family man.
Seven, a nine year old Mac andCharlie and they certainly bring
a whole lot of balance to mylife, which is which is awesome.
Where I suppose my backgroundis. Firstly, the job was selling
radio advertising actually sortof here's a phone book, look it
up, look up your customers andgo sell them some some radio and
basically had a small gig up andover us and in times of fame

(06:15):
radio slots. Terribly.
Absolutely shit. Now it was adisaster. I had an awesome boss,
Lady Anna McGovern she was shewas fantastic. But six massive
failure at sound radioadvertising and, and basically
learn, I suppose how's it soundthough, and really, one of the

(06:38):
biggest challenges I had was thearea I sold to couldn't get our
radio frequency. And I was doorknocking all through Kenya. And
really no times if it wasn't, wecan get time's up. And so what
we went out and did is I wentand bought them a whole lot of
radios, and bought them a wholelot of booster antennas to put
on top of the shops. And I waslike, well, you will be able to

(06:59):
hear it then that you can leaveit on the shop and be fantastic.
We'll give you some some freeadvertising. So you can get
really started hearing howpowerful a radio station is, and
how can drive the audience fromover over into the Caribbean
stores and which I'm pretty suremost of them thought was
bullshit. But they got theirfree radio. So they were happy
in Costa sound. Totally was. Andlook, we slowly got there. But

(07:23):
what that sort of ended upevolving into which was probably
my first entrepreneurial gig wasI realized that I couldn't sell
the radio advertising now I'mnever going to buy it. And so
what I did is I went and boughtour 5000 Takko coffee cups and
put times him on the outside ofthose caps. And then I put those
caps into all the coffee shopsfor free around the cubby area.

(07:46):
And I just paid for that. And Iprobably have a student loan at
the time. And say and then allthe businesses and lucky we
started calling and say what'sthose times the theme? How do we
get on time? And I was like,Well, this is more of a thing
than times within some what canI do here and so into b&w and
said, Well, can you give me15,000 bucks, and I'll print

(08:06):
30,000 takeaway coffee cups, andI'll put them into all the local
cafes and nickimja area. Andthen they paid me and they did
that. And so that was my firstever gig. I was 20 then and, and
so getting $15,000 in W waspretty spectacular for me at
that particular time. And what Isort of did at that particular

(08:28):
time was having the structure ofradio advertising my head about
having particular areas and theway you sell and marketing of
advertising. I went and signedup the cafes for exclusive
distribution points for thatproduct, which was branded taco
coffee cups. But the cafes lovedit because they got free
takeaway coffee cups and andthen I could go and sell space

(08:52):
on those cups to localbusinesses or anything else and
then ended up building thatbusiness and to about 100k a
year of revenue. Then I sold itwas sold to a company from
Melbourne who has an outdoorpainting company at 21. Because
they have really good chunk ofcash. And that was sort of
cleared up a little bit for me,it was pretty exciting. And that

(09:15):
gave me enough money to put adeposit down on my notion loan.
But

John Holt (09:20):
now I wonder how are we going to decide if we go into
this phase of your life thatthat just never constantly never
ceases to amaze me that shewants enough. I went to a dinner
the other night. There's onlyfour of us it was a few months
ago now but I turned up earlyand the champion invited me told

(09:41):
me who else was coming and Ithought Greg Sean's coming. And
I said, you know, one amazingbloke and he's handsome he looks
in his life and he mentioned wasone year about to in this guy
said, Oh, I didn't realize that.
Yeah, tell us. Tell us thatstory. Okay, and also, not too
useful Exam. Barclays, probablydriven by New Zealand flight

(10:01):
prices. Yeah, well, yeah, well

Shaun (10:05):
these guys are certainly I've thought about rolling the
Tasman again. But look. In 2018I rode the Tasman Sea solo from
Coffs Harbour and crashed landedon 90 Mile Beach it took me 54
days and as a massive adventureand I was very lucky to have to
have made it the the genesisbehind the why is my dad was the

(10:28):
first person around the TasmanSea back in 1977. He left from
Hokianga Harbour and rode for 63days by himself in this little
boat Cory, Cory Yorkshire hadalready carried all of his own
water and crashed landed on abeach called Marcus Beach,
assassins and nustep What's the

John Holt (10:46):
what's the crash and found the landed it's obviously

Shaun (10:49):
it's quite hard to roll gently onto a surf beach. So a
flip the same thing happened tome I had to jump out and this
woman then have to jump out onjust because the the boats are
so heavy and begun. They're soon the power of two laws, you
don't, you can't really controlthe direction at all, if you're

(11:09):
on a wave that waves andcontrols

John Holt (11:11):
technically speaking up nearly

Shaun (11:15):
100% Yeah, there's extra, you know, it's still up for
great boss to fight. It's

John Holt (11:21):
an awesome achievement.

Shaun (11:22):
Oh, it was a big adventure. And I still you know,
it still amazes me that 12failed attempts to row the
testament. And dad is still theonly person who have rode from
New Zealand to Australia soloand I'm still the only person
who arrived from Australia toNew Zealand solo. So that's, to
me, that's really cool to sharethat the debt. And so I quite

(11:42):
like that as our our littlething. And but again, that was a
massive challenge. For me, thatwas way harder than I ever
thought. And a story I alwayssort of tell us is on day four,
I was sitting there just cryingon the bike because I was like
shit, this is this is 10 timesharder than I ever thought I've
rode for four days. And thefirst four days are kind of very

(12:04):
dangerous, because you're in theshipping lanes. And so you've
got no real proper light, you'revery low to the water so the
ships can see you. So you'regonna get mowed over unless
you're really careful. And soyou wrote as hard as you can for
four days. And so I wasexhausted. And then I realized,
this is a never, I'm never gonnaknow when this is going to end.
I don't know what's coming. I'mtotally out of control here.

(12:25):
This is really, really hard. AndI don't know if I actually want
to do it. And I thought like Iset the boat on fire. I had a
life raft and I look at Primuscooker. And I was like you know
what, fuck it, I can sit thisboat on fire and I'll still get
a good story. And I'll probablystill be able to pay some of my
debt and we're on the way. Andthat's it they fought for and my

(12:48):
fruitcake have run out that my,my, my awesome wife and maid.
And and so you know, should ithit the fan and say I'll send
the guy should What can I do?
Sit in the boat on fire. Andthen I looked at all the names
of the people who have given mea little bit of money on the
boat and and some of them giveme 20 bucks some or give me
$5,000 There's just all thesepeople that have backed me, and
believed in me and said, here'san opportunity. And I sat back

(13:10):
and I thought well, actually,Shawn, you're the only person in
the world that's been given thechance to grow the Tasman Sea
solo, by yourself. Today, you'rethe only person currently doing
it. If you weren't here doingit, what would you be doing in
the B, there'd be someone elseprobably taking your spot D once
on the spot. And it reallyshifted the way I approached
pressure from that point onwardswas pressure is a real

(13:32):
privilege. And going intochallenging situations, it's
always good to remind yourself Ithink, well, this certainly for
me is to offer I wasn't here,where would I be? And nine times
out of 10 I think most of uskind of want to be where we are,
but we don't acknowledge it. Andthen we reflect on as a hard or
stressful situation. You goactually, every choice leading

(13:52):
to this, I was mailed, orhopefully most of the times. And
I'm here and that kind of reallymean through the risk of the
truck to go well. Yeah, it'sreally hard. But this is this
can be a bit of your life'swork. And this could be your
moment, and what a cool thing.
And so look at it like that andbe happy about it still means
things got really, really hard.
But I use that quite a lot nowsort of businesses and any

(14:15):
stressful man on that. Okay, howcan we turn this into a good?

John Holt (14:21):
Somebody said once?
Well, I mean, it's a scientificfact pressure makes diamonds.

Shaun (14:26):
Here? Well, hopefully.
Yeah, I think yeah, I thinkthat's certainly if we can
respond in there. Oh, wow. Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.

John Holt (14:33):
We're going to come back to that in quite a few
times, I think because we'regoing to take on the founder
sort of journey and yourthoughts around there as well.
But, you know, a bit to thisminor sort of trans Tasman

Shaun (14:44):
is why hasn't anybody else done it? Well, I think it's
it's a big undertaking, right.
And so it's a big it's a bigchallenge and it's scary and
it's pretty dangerous.

John Holt (14:58):
What haven't we done?

Shaun (15:00):
oh two years of planning, route two years of planning, but
I bought the boat myself copieda design from the Atlantic Ocean
run boats, you've really got tobe willing to give up a big
chunk of your life to go for itdoesn't pay very well. In fact,
it can cost you a lot of moneytoo. It's it's one of these
strange things, I suppose, whichsome adventures or founders will

(15:24):
have. The challenge is excitingof completing that. And I
suppose I had the extramotivation of matching my dad's
accomplishment and, and whichwas another driver, which many
other people wouldn't have. Andso, to me, that was a bit of a
gift. And that did get me out,you know, set a mark and, and
one of the main motivators, Ithink, was if someone else had

(15:46):
rode the Tasman, from NewZealand to Australia, and was
the first I just I would regretthat for the rest of my life.
And that was the biggest momentI had probably and I was
thinking I was like, wow, ifsomeone else does that, I'm
gonna be past that to me. I'llget that first my life and so
from that point, I had to I hadto go and do it. And so whether
other people have thatmotivation or whether they want

(16:07):
to be faster then then out wedid it, then I'm not sure but I
hope someone else does it oneday, the good.

John Holt (16:13):
Will this Buy now pay later for reissues? Now tubes, I
suppose. Isn't this sort ofmotivation? Yeah, that's right.
And, I mean, I, I think I'mgonna ask you the question in
terms of best and worst moments,or let Zuny worst day for when
you're describing or somethingelse.

Shaun (16:31):
Now worse was I flip the boat endo rain. So what's called
puts polled on day 3660 knots ofwind 10 o'clock at night,
totally. Now they're out ofcontrol. And there's not much
you could do that apart fromhold on to go into a camp and
tie everything down on the boat.
And it sounds like a simpleseven taking off the wind and

(16:51):
the waves, it's pretty gnarly,felt the boat get picked up by a
wave. And I sift down the faceof it and buried the nose on the
boat and the bottom of thatparticular wave. And that there
was like a slow flips, I wasn'toverly violent. The boat dug in
and then slowly sort of rolledover and over and and the
battery will chose probablyabout 10 or 15 kilos of battery

(17:13):
landlubber face. So that was abit of a Ouch. But also I was
upside down. The book wasdesigned to self rise. And so it
should have just popped back up.
But it didn't for some reason.
And so

John Holt (17:26):
I still remember the boat builder.

Shaun (17:29):
Yeah, well, yeah, it was less than an accountability. If
you built the boat and you dothe right thing. There's,
there's not many fingers, youcan point. And so I was upside
down. And then the way the liferaft was tied to the deck of the
boat, held the Bible upsidedown. And so I just stayed
there. And I vividly rememberlooking at the cabin hatch, and

(17:50):
I was underwater, and it wastotally underwater, but there's
not, no, we've got an epoch andI literally a pocket was sitting
I was sitting inside off andit's a sealed cabin. So I was
there and I was like holy shit,this doesn't really get any
worse. Yeah, I'm upside down andI wasn't panicking I because I
knew that this is what it wasdesigned for. And that's going
to be okay. And I knew that itwas gonna hold together. But I

(18:13):
was like well this is quite anunusual scenario. And there was
more about right what do I needto do now to get the boat up
right and so I can keep rightand and go and go out again. And
so eventually I positioned mybody in a cabin tub start
rocking the boat from side toside and and eventually popped
the boat back up and then sowhat had happened when the boat

(18:35):
verted is some of the emergencybacon said automatically
triggered and so it wasn't thebig major ePub one thankfully it
was this one actually suppliedby a New Zealand Company called
trek plus, which inverted anddusted off a beacon to a
website. And part of that thewebsite immediately started
flashing emergency beacon andthe funny part of the story is

(18:57):
TV through saw that and then theTV reporters caught my mum and
they're like What do you thinkSean's set off his emergency
beacon you know he's in troubleand mum was like I don't know
but let's say so it was at themoment and so the story is a
little bit longer but whatpopped back up again I was fine
last summer was lost some stuffoff the deck and all that kind

(19:17):
of stuff and then all theemotion caught up with me the
next morning and the sea of Kenbrought down and I was sitting
there bawling my eyes out justgoing fact that was intense that
was really bad this is anunwritten I'm at all there's
nothing I can do. And it'sawful. And so I called my dad
and then and I was kind ofsobbing and a little bit

(19:38):
emotional. And I was like thisis bloody terrible. What's got
this is so often awful, it'sterrible and then Dec days
fuckup and I was like oh, okay,sorry. I was kind of hoping for
a bit of a national supportthere you guys look around you.
And okay, and it goes Have yougot a seat and I was like yes
and he goes Have you got allwasn't yesterday he goes What
the fuck you talking to me andhang out and talk about right

(20:05):
message at the right time. Youknow, I think he had taught sea
survival and the Navy for 20years. And so he knew, I think,
and I was so lucky to have thatconversation. And you know, the
best things you could do is getaround, get some progress and
get towards New Zealand. No onecan rescue him in the middle,
nothing's gonna change for hisbenefit apart, you know, unless

(20:26):
he starts growing really hard.
And so yeah, that was that wasprobably the worst.

John Holt (20:32):
And then flipping to the brighter blue skies,

Shaun (20:35):
brighter blue, I think it was the moments of moments of
realization of what aspectacular opportunity I was
having, and what an amazingexperience I was having. And
they, they were, you know, theywere pretty frequent. You know,
the sea might be totally flatone morning, you get out here a
while and you're like, Wow, thisis, you know, I'm 24 I'm in the

(20:57):
middle of the Tasman and what anadventure this is, there aren't
many bigger adventures. And sokind of when those little
moments happening, I was like,Yeah, this should be pretty
proud of the stuff you've gothere. You know, you're in the
middle you're, you're in thearena, you're going for it. And
so those combination of allthose moments as they happen
along the way, we're definitelythere. They magnetite sort of
effect on credit pretty proud of

John Holt (21:19):
so I'm still amazed just just even you know and even
more of a cyst here any kind oftake some some stories out of
it. It's just a it's just aphenomenal achievement. When
you're doing it again.

Shaun (21:31):
Yeah, look, I get asked that quite a lot. You know,
would you do it again? And am Idoing it again? It to me the box
was definitely, definitely checkthat box. There's no There's no
appetite there. I've probablygotten too, too comfortable with
the finer things in life. I likemy bed. I like a cold beer. I
like I like hanging out myfamily and say it wasn't

John Holt (21:50):
just the bigger boat.

Shaun (21:52):
That could be the wrong now I've got no no but getting a
tight but but but but in termsof wasn't worth it. Would I do
it again? Yes. Yes. So

John Holt (22:01):
funny, awesome.
Moving into, you know, thisworld that that we're both
traverse in, I think you getback a lot to the ecosystem as
well. A sound that you know,cereal founder. What? You've
done this a few times, what doyou mean sort of carry overs and
tears of things that you buildon? Each time? You do this?

(22:22):
Yeah, it's

Shaun (22:29):
one of my biggest, one of my biggest lessons, it's a hard
one because there's always somany and the wonderful part of
why I choose this life ofconstantly starting new startups
and working with startups is youget applicants constantly and
you think you know things andyou totally you know, get shown
a whole new thing regularlytechnology changes and so

John Holt (22:51):
especially like attending the University of the

Shaun (22:56):
Oh, it is hard. I know it's brutal. And yeah, and I
thought were in a Tesla washard. But being being a founder
and trying to help otherfounders with the right advice,
which is going to be impactfulis incredibly hard and and
wonderfully humiliating, andkeeps a very grounded. So
fingers. Thanks. I'm a biggestthings I learned is remain

(23:18):
coachable constantly that youcan learn from so many people.
And making sure that you dropyour guard enough that people
will give you the advice thatyou need to hear. And then a lot
of the time in the corporateworld all the time that they
just are so guarded and sostrong and their view about ways

(23:38):
of doing things, they actuallyjust missed the boat entirely as
to what matters. And people aretoo scared to give them that
feedback. And so I think tryingto be approached continuously
being open and approachable.
Trying to make sure people wantto give you advice and wants you
to succeed by acknowledging theinput they're given to you as
well. I think is really helpsyou make make helps you avoid

(23:59):
huge mistakes regularly.
Sometimes it's really hard tolisten to some of that, because
it could be quite damning onyour own personal capability or
what you've done or what you'veinvested in, or what you've
invested other people's money inas well. And so it's I think

(24:19):
remaining coachable and beingable to move very quickly when
you can acknowledge that otheradvices right as well. To act
upon it. So one would be onwould be coachability remaining
open to being coached. Olympicathletes don't get there by
themselves near the confounders.
No one can no one by themselves.
You need a team of great people.
The other the other big thing isthere's a there's a balance of

(24:45):
am I actually don't have ananswer to this at all. But
there's a balance of ofconfidence and arrogance. And
it's trying to figure out wherethat line is. And and what that
line is because you will neverbuild a great startup unless
you're confident of its success.
And then you've got to walk thisline of humility, confidence and

(25:09):
some what can be perceived asarrogance as well, because you
believe in it so much. And youneed to convince other people to
invest money into it as well.
And you've got to have, you'renot going to be successful then
unless you unless you do havethat confidence. But then you
got to be told, and listen towatch quite regularly what you
need to shift on that particularstartup or seed. And I guess

(25:30):
it's, I've typically played andseed and precede. And I think
that that's very characteristicof that space later on. Because
you do have data and metrics ofsuccess, and you do know what
repeatable systems and processeswork. But for me, it's those
couple of things which Istruggle with. But also, I think
I can do pretty well. Now I'velearned sort of how to walk

(25:52):
those lines,

John Holt (25:54):
I guess there's a couple of things there. I mean,
that psychological safety you'retalking about, that leads to
much more talked about, youknow, a really having open
conversation with people versus,you know, defensive mechanisms,
as you say, but you know, andeverybody, usually well, meaning
wants to give you theperspective. Next, the big
challenge is really suffering inyour own heat between the

(26:17):
perspective which was valued,that's what it is. Yes. The
advice that's actuallyactionable? Yes. Yeah, totally.
How do you rationalize her?
Well,

Shaun (26:26):
that's brilliant. So we, before this, I had a two hour
session with an incredibleoperator, and we've got this new
business Symfony. And he was aglobal payments expert,
incredibly, but you've alwaysgotten a whole lot of different
opinions about stuff, which camefrom really robust experience
and was awesome. What you'vealways balanced as the founders,

(26:49):
whether people like it or not,you generally know your business
better than any of them. Andyou've had more domain depends
on what stage you're at. Butyou've more likely had a lot
more domain exposure and tryingto sell it to the different
stakeholders along the way. Andso you will always get multiple
people coming in with thoseopinions, what those helpful
bits of advice. And I thinkyou've got to be careful and how

(27:13):
you build the context with thosepeople prior to those meetings,
about where you want advice, andwhere you want that help,
because they can come in and lobgrenades really quickly and
totally fucking your strategy ordirection, often
unintentionally, andunintentionally, you slip back
and there's a panic attack. Andso of Oh, my gosh, we're doing
things totally wrong. And, and Ithink a lot of people will pick

(27:35):
up and get defocused by thosescenarios, or those pieces of
feedback due to the caliber ofthe person, given that bit of
feedback. And so it's always,when you are taking feedback, I
think it's important that youinform and educate that person
as much as they are able to, onwhere you want the advice and
your journey to date. And as afounder of quite a few

(27:58):
businesses over the years, I'velearned that I can tolerate that
feedback and know and sift andsort that feedback and
information where it's relevantand where it's not. And I
suppose that's the confidenceaspect you've got to be able to
use ago, he's got that view,because he hasn't been or she
hasn't been on this journey yet.
We know we've knocked on thatdoor, we've opened that door,
we've been down that rabbithole. And it's not actually an
option, but but I'd want tovalidate what they're just

(28:20):
saying. And that could have beena year or something ago. So
that's always a tricky one.

John Holt (28:25):
Yeah, how to proceedings, and then I'm going
to sort of go wandering out inthe, in the bullseye of starting
stuff and talk about yourpeople. He is the management and
leadership of V. Yeah, you know,your thoughts on how you do
there, as well as, curate,manage whatever you describe it
as the feedback that's getting,you know, it's one thing for you

(28:46):
to build your own, the abilityto process that and deal with
it. But talk to us about youryour sort of learnings and now
kind of key key guidelines andrules of leadership. And then

Shaun (28:56):
finally that so so on that one on that topic, you've
got to be careful how much youexpose your team and in and
personally get to know your teamand what they are able to handle
as well. Some as an example,some people like pure structure
and safety, and they want thatstructure in the safe. And
that's where they perform,that's where they're happy. And

(29:18):
that's where they you will getthe most out of them where you
give them a task. They're notthey're not coin operated, they
can still think for themselves,but they cannot tolerate
insecurity or strategy or orthat their business might not
work or that what they'reworking on might not be
successful. They just need thestructure and to follow that.
And so when you bring inexternal people who have a

(29:40):
variety of strong opinions, andthey can absolutely destroy that
person for a couple of weeksbecause we talk about sort of
anti fragile, but they don'tdeal with anti fragile will very
well the chaos that shifts indirection the pivots, they want
structure, they want repeatableprocesses and that's when
they're going to dominate onceso we When I, when I look at

(30:01):
building and managing my teams,I think I look at culture and
phase of the business. Soculturally, what kind of person
is that person? What can theytolerate? And where have they
been prior. So, at the stage ofthe symphony business, which
we're running at the moment,lots of change, lots of
challenges, lots of high tensionconversations, lots of pressure,

(30:22):
we're early stage with findingproduct market fit, moving fast,
quick decisions, and, and lotsof lots of sort of walls to bust
through. And, you know, I lovethat I've sort of loved that
challenge and thriving. And mychallenge as a CEO of that
business is to identify theright people who also love that

(30:45):
challenge. And then puttingbehind those people, the people
who love the safety and securityand systems and the graph, does
that get a whole lot done. Soit's really making sure that
you're putting the right peopleinto the right places that can
tolerate the various stages oftheir business, and then moving
those people on really quickly,once you evolve to because a

(31:06):
business like symphony, which isyou know, a year old, is rapidly
changing, right? And so we don'tnecessarily know, the
organizational structure, andwho are the right people, the
right time, and the right spots,to scale that business to where
it's going to land. So it's oneof these things where you've
always got to be ready to chopand change, you've always got to

(31:28):
be ready to be nimble on yourapproach. And I guess,
fundamentally, I think at thisstage, one thing I'd say is, a
lot of it is more values driven,then then then skill set,
because I think we're allgrafting and chopping and
changing that us working as ateam to deliver an outcome for
customers is priority numberone. And that takes a whole lot

(31:51):
of a whole lot of good culturalstuff over and over and above
actual capability, I think ofseparate skill sets from time to
time.

John Holt (32:02):
You mentioned values, what are your COVID

Shaun (32:07):
or COVID values? Look, I think solutions orientated is
definitely my biggest one thatyou know, make sure that when
we're looking at everything, wenever approach it with. What
there's nothing we can do,right? It is always Well,
where's the solution? And thereis always a solution. There's
always a path forward. Anddefinitely, if I'm ever showing

(32:29):
up with a saying, Oh, we'redone, you know, then I need an
upper cap. Because I just so Ithink for me, absolutely
solutions orientated thatthere's a path and there's a,
there's a conversation to behad, whether it's post an
argument, whether it's goinginto a negotiation, or whether
it's employment dispute or anopportunity, there's always a
way forward. Positivity,definitely, I think, you got to

(32:53):
remind yourself of that all thetime. I think it's a choice, you
wake up and you are going to bean asshole to that day, or
you're going to actively gonext, I'm going to try and drive
a positive attitude to the teamor the organization. I'm working
with that day. And persevere. Ithink that's definitely stuff. I
could summarize what what Ithink I remind myself of, and I

(33:15):
suppose it's going to staypositive, persevere and based
solutions orientated. And if Icould keep deliver on that, then
the outcomes will take care ofthemselves.

John Holt (33:23):
Nice. OS, we're going to, we're gonna move into sort
of a section, which I reallywant to get your views on, given
your background and living inthe, you know, the heartbeat of
entrepreneurialism, at one time,I'd argue it's no longer that
Southern Valley, you know,you're based in San Francisco,
leaving their business out andjust talk about global from New

(33:44):
Zealand. But before that, giveus the elevator pitch for
something.

Shaun (33:49):
Awesome. Well, look, we're, we're an insurance
payments platform primarily. Sowhen you're looking at
insurance, it's an $8 trillionmarket in terms of how many
premiums the world pays everysingle year. And those payments
come in all different ways,different shapes and sizes,
people will pay by credit carddirectly, but premium funding,
bank transfers, all sorts ofdifferent ways. And it's

(34:12):
insurance is sold in all sortsof different ways as well. And
so what Symphony does isSymphony acts as the collector
of all those different payments,no matter how customer or small
businesses paying for theirinsurance, and just all those
payments into an orchestrationsystem, which basically matches
the personal is applying for thepolicy to the payment reconciles

(34:35):
all of that information, andpushes it up into a dashboard
and a whole lot of easily todigest reports and there so
other systems like zerooperating systems can ingest it
all. So it makes paying reallyeasy and really transparent for
customers for digitalexperience. It makes managing
hundreds of 1000s of customersreally, really easy for

(34:57):
insurance and their sellers ofinsurance and However all
collectively at remove lock xfrom the businesses who sell
insurance as well. So betterexperience for the buyer better
experience for the seller, thebest possible customer
experience at the lowestpossible operating costs with
automation running througheverything.

John Holt (35:16):
And then my friends and listeners don't know how
many there are hopefully doublefigures as a masterclass and
pitching.

Shaun (35:24):
Next night, hopefully,

John Holt (35:26):
so clearly a global problem. Absolutely, yeah,
trillions of dollars at stake,the US Senate you edited, you
exited generic pay later to talkus through, you know, at a high
level, the this is the problem Iwant to solve next.

Shaun (35:41):
I think where it started was I actually invested in a
business called quashed, whichis a policy management platform.
And I said, I'd do a white paperfor that particular business, I
sit on the board of, you know,the opportunity and payments for
that particular business. What Irealized very quickly is one,

(36:01):
there was a huge gap. And tothat it was a massive, massive
business in itself. And theycouldn't, there wasn't a
solution that they could pluginto. And so the entrepreneur
and Shawn basically said, Well,I'll tell you what, I'll build
that. And that's going to be youknow, that's going to be
amazing. And that should be areally good opportunity I didn't

(36:22):
quite comprehend yet. I thinkthat's that flash in the pan
type book, wow, I'm gonna dothat it's gonna be a piece of
cake. Yeah, I'll just just goand do that. And, sure we can,
we can build somethingspectacular and huge and quick.
And so started researching inwhat I suppose I had the luxury
of as I'd finished that achievedCOVID I've had, so I have huge

(36:43):
amount of time. And really, Ijust thought I'd take a year off
and hanging out with the kids.
And though started researchingand researching insurance,
insurance, distribution,insurance payments, how it
works, the the customer flows,the journeys and everything, and
was just dumbfounded with howantiquated how slow an awful
experience was as a whole. Andwhere I just thought we had the

(37:04):
domain expertise across what wehad done previously, but the
generic pay business to executeon a far better global solution.
And the market was huge. And soI thought, if I'm going to deal
with that, in the next 15 yearsof my life to creating something
valuable, had the market size,we had the domain expertise, and
we felt we could actuallydeliver something 10 times

(37:28):
better than that was at play.
And so that was the combinationof things that came together to
go yeah, let's go raise money.
Let's go. Let's go ahead andlet's do it again,

John Holt (37:38):
we'll come back to that, raising some money. So get
into this globe bellatti. A bitof a bit of a quick, quick fly
around, I've got three phrases,I'm interested in your kind of
reaction and comment whateverway you want to phrase it. And
I've got my own views on them aswell. But you know, what we hear
a lot around New Zealandecosystem punching above our

(38:00):
weight

Shaun (38:04):
looks it's a bit pauses and punching above our weight.
Yes, and we need to believe thatwe can a lot more

John Holt (38:16):
innovation nation.

Shaun (38:19):
Not as good as we think we are.

John Holt (38:22):
Pure New Zealand.

Shaun (38:26):
Great to trade off, but maybe not true.

John Holt (38:31):
Yes, very, very significant crossovers. And I
just, I just kind of set it upfor this place around thinking
about how to get some nuggetsfrom me, which you've already
you know, very generouslycontributed around this
modality. Because I think it isessential for us as a country
and in for an entrepreneur, youknow, he adherence market and
New Zealand would be what noteven a percentage.

Shaun (38:53):
No, no, it's not in the expertly, we need to travel and
the wonderful part is your plansare working again. And so get on
them. Get overseas exposeyourself to it.

John Holt (39:03):
Yeah, well, and just if you can expand on that a bit
because it's my you know, myline on this is just you know,
what is the advice you'd givesomebody going global from New
Zealand based on yourexperience, yet cool,

Shaun (39:15):
never be afraid to go Nish. New Zealand. New
Zealanders and businesses in NewZealand typically say yes to
everything because we have to doto market size. We generally
hate our competitors becausewe're all fighting for such a
small piece of the pie. And andthat can be quite disturbing in
terms of your globalopportunity. And so when you

(39:37):
look at markets, I think now asan entrepreneur who has built
two businesses off overseas, Idefinitely try and be as niche
as I possibly can into aparticular sector. Look at the
global opportunity of thatnation and think about us how do
we be the best in the world atyou know, making shoe eyelets or

(39:59):
whatever it is? Start, just getas nice as you possibly can to
build features in aroundundefendable capability and
around that niche domainexpertise. And so for me it is,
and I'm looking at, look atdebitsuccess as an example, when
we went to, when we went to theUS, we went, and we were a gym
membership online platform, itwas where do we go? How are we

(40:23):
going to win? Is it pricedifferentiation or niche? What
are we going to do? In NewZealand, we were trying to do
insurance payments, gymmembership payments, beauty
payments, childcare payments,absolutely. And trying to
provide some software becauseyeah, we have to to get the
volume and to end and look, tobe fair, we provide a pretty
good solution into those spacesas well, which was good, but it

(40:44):
wasn't globally scalable. And wewent to California, and we're
based in San Francisco, andwe're gonna sell everyone again,
we're gonna go, we're gonnaabsolutely go for it. And huge
amount of money going intothere. And ultimately, the go
everywhere, be everything foreveryone strategy didn't work.
And so

John Holt (41:01):
just riffing on that, just for clarity. This company's
got a ton of capital to putbehind us. Yeah, good point.
Yeah, we kind of wide Yep. Andstill realize that it's not
Yeah, we,

Shaun (41:13):
you know, ultimately, we had as much money as we needed
to try and win in some ways. Andwe went wide. And really, you
never became good at anything,right. And you were kind of
okay, a lot, but you're nevergood at anything. And so what
that opens the door to is, as anentrepreneur, now, with a little
bit more experience, I look atthat, and I go, I would look at

(41:34):
that business, and I would findwho they're doing the worst job
for. And I would rebrand,website, and I would become, I
don't know what you'd call it,maybe beauty membership, billing
systems, or whatever it mightbe. And then you'd go and you'd
Smash, Beauty Therapy, and thenand then you kind of
geographically nation as well.
And especially for the States, Ithink it's quite important as
the states. And so you go, Well,let's look at California, then

(41:58):
you realize California is thesixth biggest economy in the
world. And you go, we'llactually

John Holt (42:03):
put in really a country as a point of view.

Shaun (42:06):
A lot of small market, and there's a whole lot of small
and

John Holt (42:09):
large markets. Yeah, right.

Shaun (42:11):
If you're one, if you want San Francisco, you have
still, it's still bigger thanyou could probably ever be in
New Zealand.

John Holt (42:17):
So how would you solve for success locally? Yes.
Yeah. What were the bigdifferences? I mean, obviously,
you're the new Yep, the new kidon the block, get their boots on
the ground for dealers that saysyes, talk us through the big
noticeable differences, I guess,culturally and commercially
about, you know, jumping intothat market and the front end,
yeah, cool.

Shaun (42:37):
starts anew. Okay. So Newseum, you're going to sell
something you everything to thatbuyer. So your account manager,
you're the salesperson,generally you're the delivery of
that product or that solution.
And generally you're the you'rethe ongoing account executive to
drive more success you are, youare the lifecycle of that sale.
Certainly in the States, thefragmentation of the sales

(42:58):
process, account management,onboarding, and ongoing customer
success is fragmented out. Andso it's quite unusual. And
sometimes this was of benefitthat you own the whole
lifecycle. And so, because it'sso big, they have they segment
out their funnel quite a lotmore in the phases of that
growth funnel, and who has to dowhat? And so what you find, or

(43:18):
what I certainly found is wewere under equipped for the
amount of resource and needed toserve the buyer at each of those
phases on the funnel, and we'rehere to compete in New Zealand.
Yep. So you arrived in the USand like, Well, you're the host,
the account executive was thewas the onboarding team, Where's

(43:39):
all this kind of start from?
When we started, like, Oh, it'sjust me, and I'm doing
everything. And then for thesmaller sales, fine, that's
okay. They found that unusual,but it was, it was learning that
highly repeatable highlyscalable sales systems require
you to break down that salescycle into its components. And

(44:01):
and learn to pass that on atscale. And that's where you can
start dealing with you know, 100sales leads a day and moving
them down the funnel. And that'sthat sort of the hypergrowth
model as well. So that was my,my one learning is setting up
for that hyper growth, even ifit starts with four people
breaking it down to that andthen then at least you've got
the model to scale that up to 50which was what we did you know,

(44:24):
pain by now pay later.

John Holt (44:27):
Yeah, I'm gonna ask another question around that is
that just comes to mind wherethey're spending a lot of time
personally, you know, we'vewe've sort of wrecked key with
any pair territory three. Andit's former sort of view of
trying to help everybody top andbottom of funnel mean by that
is, you know, people listeningto inspiration or perspectives

(44:47):
to get going through to thestuff that I personally enjoy,
which is, you know, selling whatthe sort of founders who are
really getting through the hoopsYes, so we've cut that out. And
then when I'm now down at thatfounder through the hoops, my
Patient is the sales side ofthat disease. And so a couple of
questions for you just to put,you know, that really useful
perspective and contrast to I'mthe founder, you know, you've

(45:12):
clearly demonstrated with, withthe wonderful radio example,
you've got that sales backgroundearly on, I'm a technical
founder, I'm able to find my waythrough, you know, most of the
technical problems that codingand so forth, I'm now you know,
starting to get some tractionaround the problem I'm solving,
what would your advice be beingtheir first salesperson, and

(45:33):
there's a non salesperson or notfrom that background? And then I
think the bigger gap, which ishow to manage Another resource
is the founder, essentially,it's the sales manager at a
small organization. So, youknow, where do I go to be moved
from Cardinal Lakota to, to haveto sell mine solution that I'm

(45:54):
coding? And then how do I kindof move on to actually making
sure I'm getting something outof, you know, the first sales
person or somebody is going todo it? That's not me

Shaun (46:04):
doing so. So this was bringing on I, this is like,
technical founder bringing ontheir first sales. Yeah, I mean,

John Holt (46:12):
generally, blonde, we name a whole bunch of pictures
come from that background. Youwatch them just, yeah, quickly,
you know, one of their skillsets as quickly as similar to
knowledge. Yes, yeah. And cansell it. Yes. But they only go
so fast. Yeah. So you know, whatare your thoughts around that
case? And then like, how do you?
Because you definitely get kudosyou're not going to get as the

(46:34):
first salesperson when you havea founder?

Shaun (46:37):
Yes. Yes, yeah.

John Holt (46:40):
And I think there's, there's definitely picking tell
me, Hey, John, we'd love to hearmore perspectives and say more
resources about just how, youknow, the sort of things the key
things because you can go andGoogle, you know, how to be the
sales manager. Yeah. But what inyour mind are the key things
they look for in there? Youknow, how am I making sure I'm
getting better at it yourself?

Shaun (46:59):
It's just Yeah, it's interesting, because I think
this also comes down to budget.
Yeah, as well. But time asthere's different ways to
approach and the approach Italked about for fragmenting it
out is not a cheap approach.
Yeah. Right. And that's, andit's, you burn a lot of cash
during that you need to havekind of almost gone on a journey
of understanding everyone's roledesign, before you get to that

(47:20):
point. So how do you approach itI can, I can only really talk
from the startups I've beeninvolved with, and what I've
seen work and what I've seencatastrophically fail. Yeah, the
best outcome I've ever had was,I hear my maiden name, and a guy
called, met me in Melbourne. Andwe, he was a very systems

(47:43):
orientated salesperson. And sohe was an operator, he was a
real, here's a system, this iswhat you follow, here are the
email templates, this is how yousend those and this is how you
respond to them. And as long asyou do this, 150 times 27
outcomes are going to happen,and they're probably going to be
good, right? So do this, and I'mgoing to crack the whip and get

(48:04):
this done. I love that approach.
Because you can measure it, youcan manage it, and it's money in
money out type of production,it's can be quite brutal. And
there's very personable. And,and you get a lot of cheer, I've
stopped doing that as well. Sobut from a single founder point
of view, I think if you can finda person that understands that

(48:27):
sales as a system, growth as asystem of repeatable steps and
putting the right systems inclose, in write content, right?
Email Templates, right, nurture,journey, all that sort of stuff.
It is a data driven system of,of inputs and outputs. And so
I'm convinced of that. And sowhen I give advice to founders,

(48:50):
it is fun sign that acknowledgesthe science of science, as well
as there is an element of X thatthey have, and their ability to
build rapport is there. Now,these people are not easy to
find at all. And there is noshortage of salespeople that
will sell their ability to you,which is also really bloody hot.

John Holt (49:14):
And usually the ones who sell at the best are the
ones that had the most practice.
Yeah.

Shaun (49:19):
Sometimes they are just asking terrible sales people, or
you need to fire as quickly aspossible, right. And so So
reading the bullshit ofsalespeople is one of the
hardest things and I'm a salesperson and so getting the right
ones that understand that earlystage like you, you need your

(49:41):
learning skill, right? And sothey're going to be they're
going to be one of your bestproduct influences as well that
salesperson because they'regonna go out and they're gonna
sell, sell the world, if they'reany good, and that's going to
drive product direction to insome ways, shape or form and so
I think it's a very hard thing.
Do because they go out and theysell all the time they bring
back. Oh, by the way, they askedfor this feature, can we do it?

(50:03):
Well, that's what we need to winthe deal. Yeah. And so they've
got to acknowledge a couple ofthings, one that the dev teams
and software can only deliver somuch. And if you oversell, then
that is just as bad as notselling at all, because they
find the whole Cisco. And thenso they can do that. And my dev
team will laugh when they hearme. And in some ways, you've

(50:25):
also got, you've also, they'vealso got to be prepared to do
the admin work to set up thosesystems and processes because
that's what you learn from. Andif they keep doing what they're
doing, it's continually failing,failing and you're not measuring
it, or we're not tracking it,well, you're going to continue
to fail, you're not going toknow why to be able to identify

(50:46):
where the gaps are. So withprograms like HubSpot, and
whatever else you're going touse, you can map the whole
customer journey, andcommunication flows and
everything, and you can reallydrill down into the science. And
then and then the art will takecare of itself, with with
everything out about or poor andconnections and network, etc,
etc. So I'll probably give youthe huge, long winded because

John Holt (51:12):
it's well worth listening to, like perfect
sense. And I think I'll comeback to because I think a lot of
people when they do have theluxury of that, you know,
traction or capital, whatever itis to get a sales team beyond
themselves. Yes. But you youmentioned it earlier. Quite
pointedly, and you know, quitespecifically, that coachability.

(51:34):
Yeah. And teams of somebodytaking on being able to take
feedback constructively, yes.
Because the system is 100%. Butyou're constantly reviewing and
refine on it.

Shaun (51:44):
Yeah, totally. Always.
We're finding always shifting,changing, your content comes
out, how's that responding?
It's, it's evolving, evolving,based in, you know, in New
Zealand, you might get a greatstartup business with three
hustlers, who are just awesome,an awesome team, who are this
national, and they're going outall the time, they're winning
lots of deals, and that'samazing. But then you've kind of

(52:07):
got to pause them all, and putthe systems in behind them and
see how you scale that becausethree is not enough, you're
gonna need to build a billiondollar business, you're gonna
need 43 or 403 of these types ofpeople. And so without the
systems, you'll never make thatleap. And you'll stay as that,
you know, that three awesomehustlers. So, you know, a wind
back the clock to the 1990s,they were going to hold in

(52:28):
common direction, and a cellphone, they drive around New
Zealand drag people a couple caraccident, that sort of stuff. So
it breaks next

John Holt (52:38):
year, and I think that's right. And, and I think,
you know, just sort of roundingout the globality pace, because
the next sort of section I wantto talk about as the world ahead
and planning for that, but youknow, I think the processes
about the refinement at themoment is critical, because we
find that a lot of heavinessdiscussions pretty regularly,

(52:59):
find a lot of companies arereally starting to see weakness,
and they're in the sales, funnelconversion. And it's kind of a
relatively new thing. Andeverything has actually been
going along swimmingly to thatpoint. But I would say, and
particularly in the States, it'sprobably indicative of some
pretty rapidly shiftingpriorities for the company so
that your solution, and this iswhere it comes down. I think I

(53:22):
love the near Al, painkiller orvitamin D. Yeah, suddenly what
you're selling to them isactually enlightenment that they
can't afford to have to keepbuying from the chemists
warehouse, suddenly, you know,the word come from on top that
gotta find some solutions tosome very different pains, yes,
and refinement and restructuringyour proposition as well as your

(53:45):
sales forces. patter is prettykey to it. Oh,

Shaun (53:48):
totally. I love that. I love that. Are you a painkiller
or your vitamin? And whoactually owns the customer?
Yeah, and where are you creatingvalue. And these are some, as
the tide has gone out, there's1000s of businesses that have
been left swimming naked.
That's, that's exactly whyright, they actually weren't
solving that bigger problem, orthey hadn't diversified across
enough of the value chain toreally sort of dig in deep

(54:10):
enough that they couldn't bemoved, or they went sticky
enough. And so we have had 10years with almost 18 years of
good times. And certainly, therehas softened a few a few
different aspects of businessand what we are willing to do to
fight to keep winning and soit's now the time to fight and

(54:32):
to dig in and go, you know, workharder. And you know, the Think
of the six day work week, maybethat's the you know, that
becomes the norm again, and thisis when we we've got to keep
going. And you've really got toask yourself and your product,
or your service that whateveryou're doing, where are the
actual pain points that andwhere are we really where are we
really solving problems andwhere's the actual value in our

(54:56):
business? And if there arethings we use spending money
that aren't creating value oradding value, then you need to
drop them. And the people thatare supporting them, you've got
to lower your cost base as lowas you possibly can and really
dig in. And that's, and thesooner you do that, the better I
think, me and you build a betterbusiness. And so then we're
gonna see a heck of a lot ofthat, and we're gonna see a heck

(55:18):
of a lot of those types of cats.
But those businesses will bebetter and stronger for the
product will be better andstronger. And that's, that's
probably what a lot of themshould have done a little while
ago as well. Right. And this isjust the moment where they have
to,

John Holt (55:35):
but it's going to be painful, Alison. valuations have
been great, you know, capitalsbeen accessible at high level.
So you know, it's never it'snever easy, but it's been more
accessible than it has been andtime. Yeah. I mean, when we're
talking from a global point ofview, it's ridiculous. Right?
And the paradox of zoom here,selling a staff that they now
must come into the office. Yes.
Yeah. Having so you know, theidea that, you know, you don't

(55:58):
need that example of thattransition around. Yes. But
productivity, culture, you know,a whole lot of things that have
been lifted a little bit withthe tide. Yeah.

Shaun (56:13):
I love I love being back in the office. I'm a big
believer in the office. That'sinteresting. And how many of
your tenure are seven of us?
Yeah. And the team. And what wedo Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
and the office Tuesday, Thursdayat home. And I understand, and I
love flexibility. But I alsothink we are doing the young
people in our organizations alot of harm, we're not teaching

(56:34):
them, they're not having thewatercooler conversations.
They're not building a routineinto their lives, which is going
to set them up to win, I don'tthink and so the coaching,
they're sharing streams, whenyou're coding, they come out and
say to me, when I teach you howto sell something, or here's
what our customers actuallyneed, and it'll work for you on
the whiteboard. And I think somuch that it's so valuable, and

(56:57):
osmosis is a real thing. And Ithink, you know, there's a lot
of learning, which a lot ofpeople are missing out on which
I, you know, I like when Iremember only I've always been a
guy who loves coming to work.
Yeah, I'd love to second familyof work, you know, more people
to share if

John Holt (57:16):
you're the instigator of the landing page one.

Shaun (57:20):
Oh, you couldn't the landing page was the best
because they kind of werecolleagues. They were mates and
the Kiwi Lane late, it wasfabulous for that. Because then
you went in the network again.
So if I could create a hashtagand be 2024 on the office,
because I just think it's soimportant, um, for everything.

John Holt (57:37):
But that's good for everybody to hear, Matt,
because, you know, even with asmall team, it's not a big
company. I'd argue it's actuallymore poignant, especially the
osmosis piece. Yes. Around smallinvolving the tank, because your
cultural still above talkedabout?

Shaun (57:50):
Yeah, and but I'm, I'm humble in that it can work as
well. And I don't, I don't likeit. Personally, I want to be in
the office. But, and Ryan fromtimely, he bought that business,
pretty much everyone was, youknow, they bought their whole
business might had a fantasticexit. And it sort of worked. And
I don't know what that secretingredient was. But Friday

(58:14):
afternoon beers would have been.

John Holt (58:17):
I remember having a few of those in the crowd, you
know, people won't last names onZoom. It's just not so

Shaun (58:23):
nice. So I hashtag 2024 in the office,

John Holt (58:27):
I say just at a higher level. Because I mean,
you make a good point about acompany, you know, like, there's
always exceptions, right? We'rereally not trying to boil down
to the ultimate now. Yeah. Butin terms of being in that
founder position, early, mid,late, whatever stage, you know,
keeping that to sort of the coreprinciples planning ahead in the

(58:48):
current environment, what areyour What are your thoughts and
perspectives to people outthere?

Shaun (58:54):
I'm various additionally aware, I know that money will
run out unless we get revenue.
And so that that covers thecost. So for me, I think make
everyone aware that every dollarcounts. And every dollar of
revenue is really hard to getand very easy to lose. So that
you can get I can get I can getbut everyone can get a bit

(59:14):
maniacal about that which can bea bit bad for motivation and
morale. But it's it's incrediblyimportant to the overall
success. If you run lean, andbuild great systems and
processes and focus on revenue,then you're gonna have a great
business and everyone's going tohave a job. If you don't, then
not everyone's gonna have a joband the business might not work.
So I think for me, lookingforward, I'm constantly looking
at the most affordable way forus to execute on things which is

(59:37):
you know, product lead growth,you know, getting case studies
using those, you know, trying totry and keep the above the line
marketing spend as low aspossible and just doing things
which will help your businessgrow without spending too much
money. I guess that's one thing.
Secondly, it's it's constantlylooking for that efficiency.

(01:00:00):
rather than hiring five, can youengineers build for something as
well. So it's looking to spend alittle bit of money upfront to
build more automation throughoutyour systems and processes.
Another thing that alwayscatches a lot of founders out
and maybe simple, there are alot of big organizations that
have sold freemium to get you onthe hook. And then all of a

(01:00:21):
sudden, in year three, you getsmashed with some massive AWS
bills or zero bows, and whereyou get smashed with some huge
HubSpot bills. And you got to bereally careful, because that
kills people, right? That justabsolutely, all of a sudden
you're getting your cloudstructure and how you've
designed your software. It's nowcosting me 1000 bucks a month.
Well,

John Holt (01:00:41):
there's also the aspect of loans and grants to
New Zealand. Yes. You know,we've seen a lot of founders
challenged by that were planshave not gone in line with, you
know, the forecasts andexpectations? Yeah, I mean, did
they give her the title. And nowsome of you know what expensive
support is catching up becausepeople have on their loans to

(01:01:02):
start being repaid, or, youknow, the grace, the grant Yeah,
ability to qualify as lift orsomething.

Shaun (01:01:09):
One other important thing, which I think I'd really
like to cite all founders, and Ithink it's one thing I've
learned the most is yourrelationship building with
shareholders and futureinvestors never ever stops. And
that that is, should be 20%. Anda minimum of your job every week

(01:01:31):
is making sure you arecontinuing to connect with
shareholders and futureinvestors, you should never
arrive at a capital raise,wondering who you're going to
talk to, and where the money isgoing to come from. It should
always be, here's a list of 100.
And we're ready to go. And I'vebeen talking to 65 of that 100.
On and off for the last fewyears, just giving them a bit of

(01:01:52):
a heads a little heads upbuilding rapport, people aren't
going to suddenly give you moneyas a Vc, Vc is not going to take
a phone call, you're not goingto do a pitch and all of a
sudden, you're going to gettheir money. It's it's a
process, it's relationshipbuilding, you're going into
business with these people, andthey need to know you and trust
you. And that takes time. And soit's not a not a lowly shot, you

(01:02:12):
don't go on to suddenly justhand over your pitch deck and
get the cash out. It is a deeppartnership, and the more they
know about your business, youknow, slightly, I think the
better outcome is going to befor you in terms of getting
capital from them. So I thinkthat's one of the biggest
lessons I've ever had, as I'vespent so much time now telling
people about what we do, whatwe're trying to do and why it's

(01:02:35):
really hard. But why the prizeis really good. Yeah, I'm off to
Las Vegas at the end of thismonth, and I'm meeting with 12
venture capital funds from theUS. I'm not raising money for
maybe two more years, but I'mjust going to meet with them,
tell them what I'm doing. I wantto build the relationship when
they come to New Zealand. I'mbuying them beers and shine them
wacky Island if I can, you know,it's, it's that's always going.

John Holt (01:02:59):
We've lost the medium of video thus, possibly wrongly,
but I'm smiling because, youknow, Las Vegas, based on me, as
it was a guy who came here withPandora are brilliant. And and
you know, he always tells astory, which is neither lost and
the times were tough. Donald wasby revenue wasn't cut, again,

(01:03:20):
costs are running out of theirhead $500 least and it was
either keep going or go to Vegasand put everything on read.

Shaun (01:03:28):
Well, yeah, I'm not going to put it. But But now looks at
the capital raising never everstops. Right. And as part of
your job is to sell theviability of your business
moving forward. And that that issomething I've learnt. Yeah,
there's been very helpful.

John Holt (01:03:49):
But we've just rolled along. It's been an hour. Oh,
good, good. Good, because you'resecond.

Shaun (01:03:57):
Yeah, no, I didn't even realize oh, that's cool. I have
three more.

John Holt (01:04:01):
Three more facets to carry with you that we've talked
about things and what we wantedto talk about between us. And
I'll preface them and then diveinto them. Quickly each one but
one was this imposter syndrome.
We talked about that. Theoriginal context, it was linked
into what I've talked with someother my guests before about a
woman in leadership, woman andleadership and leadership both

(01:04:24):
on have covered and then justwellness in general, mentor for
physical otherwise, which Ithink it'd be a great place to
end up on based based on whatwe've chatted about today, but
imposter syndrome.

Shaun (01:04:42):
impostor syndrome. I think it's a real it's a real
interesting one for me. I'venever been afraid of being
wrong. And the and learning fromwherever but I suppose maybe I
can rub some people. Why isthat? Robbie, probably talk too
quickly sometimes described as

John Holt (01:05:03):
cantankerous, which I'm sort of proud of and sort
of, you know, kind of attended.

Shaun (01:05:09):
Yeah, I have learned to think more before or I talked
about some things, but impostorsyndrome is really hard. I think
it is kind of just confidenceabout what you are involved with
and your ability to add value.
And, and the I think, you know,what Raylene said it's, you
know, it's just dead sometimes,you know? Yeah, it's like

(01:05:30):
normal, normal lives. If I saysomething wrong, people are
gonna think I'm a bit of aDecker, I am going to discredit
my own capabilities throughthrough them interpreting what
I've said, as being on themarket, or whatever it might be.
And I think I've maybe I justhaven't put myself in, you know,
out there too much in situationswhere I don't have enough domain

(01:05:52):
knowledge or some particularsignings. But certainly, I'm
never afraid to be wrong. And Iask tons of stupid questions.
And I am regularly wrong. AndI'm not fazed by that. Because I
learned quickly from that. And Ithink in some scenarios, you've
got some people who leverageother people's lack of knowledge

(01:06:16):
to make themselves feel better,right. And those kind of people
are generally decks. And not,they're nice to be around, but
we have to deal with them, wehave to work with them. And I'm
not afraid of being wrong infront of those types of people
adore. So I don't, I'm lucky, Idon't think I've really felt
impostor syndrome. So naturally,I've tried to learn from those
people quickly, and then foundout that actually, they don't

(01:06:37):
know very much, and they've gotthe confidence issue. But
ultimately, everyone getsnerves, and sometimes putting
the processes in place to tryand overcome those or surround
yourself with people to make youfeel good that you've got that
you've got the ability and skillset to deliver.

John Holt (01:06:56):
Yeah, woman and leadership. I love

Shaun (01:06:59):
them, the more we need more and more. But the best
advice and link out I've everhad was my first radio boss. And
then the government then learneda huge amount, even though you
said I wasn't totally sure. Andshe wasn't afraid to tell me how
shitty this I was, I was great.
But like, I think they bring awonderful style, I think, you
know, we can all learn a lotfrom each other. And as leaders

(01:07:23):
I really enjoy surroundingmyself with female leaders.

John Holt (01:07:30):
Why do you think that is taking so long to see that
reflected in, you know,statistics and balance in the
world?

Shaun (01:07:36):
And it's probably a combination of different things
like this bonus of a little bitto answer for, isn't that just
the way things were done? Is? Isthere's been a disadvantage
there. I think of my wife andher career and why. Look, she
she had our awesome boys andtook some time off. And we

(01:08:01):
talked about how and what shewanted to do was her career and
her life and how he was going todo what and it is. It is an it's
a conversation, and it has, whatdo you how do you want to work?
And what do you want to do andand I think it's so important
that you have that with thepower to the war doesn't feel
like it happens as much as nowand then you kind of just niche,

(01:08:24):
then then the horrible thing iswhat happens all the time as the
wife goes and has the babies orthe whoever has decided in that
relationship to have children,they get us advantage because
they're out of the workforce,and then the roles that they
were chasing, and go and it'syou know, stories many times
coffin, lose confidence, losecredibility, whatever it might
be. And so building thosepathways back in, are really

(01:08:46):
important. And we want as asummit director of Ecolo, we sit
one of our goals was to have thebest maternity leave package for
females to come back to work. Sonot just females, it's wrong in
males, it was rolled out to havethem on and reintroduce them
protect the role and keep themengaged in a particular program

(01:09:09):
while they were looking aftertheir new little ones. And
during that time as a parent,and so it's trying to make sure
we build the pathways back tohelp more engagement. And make
sure we keep those roles openwhen we can and then I think
engaging people who are onmaternity leave whilst they are
away as well helps with theconfidence. Yeah. But some of

(01:09:31):
our employment laws are alsolike that had like yeah,
breaking employment law by gameor do you recommend for some
meetings, or whatever it mightbe? And so it's, you got to be a
bit careful. So that was more onAustralia, right? That that
particular issue? Yeah, justsaying well, come on. Like bring
bring the little little one Whatdid you want to do and would
love to have you here but thenyou gotta be careful. Because
like when they're off, they'reoff and you can't, you know, you

(01:09:53):
can't push them so like it'smaking sure we get the pathways
open Bowmore pathways,continually support and And just
keep pushing to createopportunities in and create
those roles and give those rolesacross when we can

John Holt (01:10:08):
create accents to us.
Yeah,

Shaun (01:10:11):
well talk to us. Yeah.
Not to enough people. Yeah.
Yeah. Like,

John Holt (01:10:16):
you know, reflecting at the start here, you know, day
four day 36, obviously some somehigh pressure scenarios, and I
just can't even imagine justsitting there by myself for 54
days. Imaginary Friend, you

Shaun (01:10:33):
still got a lot of I wonder if I've got any friends
at all, but they look at Thankyou. Oh, it was, it was insanely
boring, really a lot of you justsitting there running for 15
hours and, and trying to thinkof things to think about and Do
and reflect and deal with a fewdemons some days and don't other
days, and he does their own way.
Hope for the best and try dosome surfing and talk to speak

(01:10:56):
up?

John Holt (01:10:59):
Well, I'm glad you you raised that demon side.
Because, you know, the wellnessside, I think, you know, we've,
it's tough for any businessowner, right. I mean, you know,
to be clear on sort of focusingthis on founders and sort of
where's the shame around, youknow, tech businesses. But for
me, I think this applies toanybody owning a business. You

(01:11:19):
know, what those experiences,you've had a circular, which is
unique and pretty, prettyextraordinary opportunities for
I guess, you know, selfreflection, and then resilience
and a whole bunch of things.
But, you know, what are your gotwos for somebody listening to
this, but really knows that not,you know, they're not quite
where they should be? Yes. Andthat's affecting their lives and
within is the way to present itto themselves. You know,

(01:11:42):
mentally, physically, whateverit is, what are your go to
direct keeping?

Shaun (01:11:48):
Well, I'll send that message to those people as well.
As you know, there is a there'salways a path forward. And
there's always awesome outcomesjust around the corner, and they
are always there, and you justgot to keep going and look for
them. For me, it's realizingthat there is a panic, anxiety
filled monster inside ofeveryone, right? They're always

(01:12:09):
there, and anyone who's puttingon a facade that it's not there,
it is definitely there, peopleare losing sleep all over the
place. And it is tough, and itis a grind, and no one has all
the answers and their socialmedia is terrible at making us
think that everyone's got theanswers. And it's all easy. And
it's all in a memo or a smallstatement, or something like
that. It's all fucking hard.
There is no quick, easy winanywhere. So firstly, I think

(01:12:32):
I've learned that I know that Iknow that everything is going to
be really hard. And thereforethere's a one that probably has
ever there's an easy win, itprobably really isn't one,
right? It's not somethingexciting. And there, what I tend
to do now a lot more. My firstbusiness, everything was on the
line houses was on the line,huge mortgage, a two year old
and a three year on a home, youknow, ship was hard, and I was

(01:12:55):
making 40 grand a year. And, youknow, if things had gone badly,
it would have been losing thehouse. And so that pressure
unfortunate now isn't there.
When I ran a Tasman, thatpressure certainly was there for
other reasons I was gonna die.
Whatever it was, what I learnedis you don't need to focus on
the whole, you don't need tosolve every problem, all you

(01:13:15):
need to do is make sure you arebeing functional, and you are
delivering value in the shortterm. And try and solve the
problems that are two inches infront of your facts, right,
solve those problems, and thenmove on to the next problem and
celebrate solving that problem.
If we become outcome orientated,rather than process orientated,

(01:13:38):
sometimes that can really throwa spanner in the works and make
you really worried about that.
Because the outcomes will takecare of themselves if you get
the process and the systemsworking. And, and I think for
me, it's focusing on the shortterm goals, celebrating those
short term goals. And if youfind that too hard, make them
smaller, make them really smallmarket the next hour, right, or
if I was rolling based settingup, right, some days, it was

(01:13:59):
just set up and have a mouthfulof porridge. And it got that got
that bad and that hard. So thinkas founders and as business
leaders focus on you know, thenext task getting that done as
best as you can and pass thatmessage on to the team. Make
sure you've got a structurewhere all those small tasks are
driving outcomes that help forthe business and make sure you
celebrate those small tasksalong the way as well and

(01:14:21):
momentum builds motivation andmotivation is helpful in
building morale and your owncapability and feeling of
capability. And so I think it'sthe harder it is the smaller I
break down the tasks and themore celebrated I do of those
small tasks to get there. Soit's that's sort of the way I
deal with it try and teach otherpeople to deal with it in that
way and then that kind of seemsto get a Bucha done.

John Holt (01:14:45):
makes a ton of sense.
So the last week I hit on thatand then I'm gonna throw it to
you but for any last thoughtsbut you know, Dave for Roma
tears man thinking about justpacking it in by sitting fire at
the boat that Are they 30 certs,but inverted? Then kind of
trying to figure out how tostill keep going? And I think

(01:15:05):
that's a very inspirational andaspirational story. But my
question is, you know, what areyour thoughts around the
framework of you know, and Ithink this faces a lot of our I
always talk about business hasbeen at three, three distinct
phases, constantly, survival,sustainable, whether it actually
got to a point where you know,they did more than they spend,

(01:15:27):
and then scalable. When, in youropinion of what framework you
use, to figure out that it'sactually time to stop.

Shaun (01:15:39):
Just don't weigh in to stop, I think. All right, John,
that's a hard one. Isn't thehard one to wait, when do you
start? When do you give up?
After I've just said, winning isjust around the corner? Yeah,
yeah, I think. For me, it's thedata, a real data driven

(01:16:00):
process, right there is, there'san emotional part with your
mentally and your mental health,you can't deal with it anymore.
And you're done. When you'redone. And you stop, right? And
then that's okay, that happensall the time. And you go and
reach out yourself. To move onwith that. When you have an
idea. And you're trying toexecute on that, and it hasn't
worked, you haven't got therevenue, the cost basis too much

(01:16:22):
the financials don't work. Ithink that's when I choose to
stop a few or tell people tostop as you kind of do all the
maths. Yeah. And you? And theanswer is always and you hit us
lot from founders all 10 millionmore files in the US, and I've
got the proper valuation. I'veweren't Yeah, I could do it. I
could absolutely do that a lot.

(01:16:43):
Yeah, you know, and if I hadn'tdone this, we could definitely
do it. And then I think yougotta go back and go, Well,
firstly, fine, raise the money,right? Cool. If you can't raise
the money, you're done in someways. And that's, that can be as
long or shorter conversation asthey want. I think to get to
that point, I really like tomake sure we've worked through

(01:17:03):
all the data, the journey todate, the time you've got the
the unit economics of thatbusiness, the product where it's
there, what we need to spend toget to the next phase, and it's
a combination of all of thatinformation to go, Well, we're
here, how much to get to here?
Do we have that money? Yes orno? As we have? Do we have the

(01:17:24):
trajectory or the story? To keepgetting to that point? If we
don't we go? Okay. I think, youknow, I think we need to stop.
And I think that's that's how Iapproached it. It's it's never a
sudden whirlwind of emotions oranything like that it is a
combination of a journey to thatpoint. And the data of God at

(01:17:45):
that particular point. I willalways, hopefully be involved
with businesses where the focusup to that point has been
building value of some sort, orbuilding value, or an asset of
some sort that we could move tosomeone. And so I'm, I'm a big
one for soft landings. And Iknow, it's sort of always trying

(01:18:05):
to make sure. And even with allthe businesses I'm involved
with, like, there's people whowe could sell it to at some
particular point, there arepeople we're building value for
in that value chain. So once weget to that point of walking the
wire go well, but what do weactually have? And if I've done
my job as a director, or assomeone involved in that

(01:18:25):
business, I would like to thinkthere's three or four people, we
might be able to move the asset,so at some point as well, so
that's kind of how I approachthat.

John Holt (01:18:35):
But it's been an awesome combo. Thanks for having
me last. I mean, the last fewit's just not like it's an
execution anything. Last Last

Shaun (01:18:42):
thought, Oh, well, this time of the year get out vote.
The only All Blacks and I don'tknow that's I think Damn. Oh,
look, well, thank you. I likefounders, it's going to be hard.
Keep those conversations goingwith, with venture capital
farmers with with angels, buildthat investor network, you're

(01:19:03):
going to need them and we'regonna have to look after them.
But keep going and keep trying.
It's I think it's one of thegreatest privileges to be a
founder. And, and it'scertainly, it's not easy, but
it's very rare. That and ifyou're ever worried that what
could happen well, you canalways get a job and to me,
that's the biggest risk.

John Holt (01:19:23):
Really any employer.
No, no, he No. Cure. Thank you,my friend. It's been great to
chat. I hope you've all enjoyedit out there. And thanks so much
for spending the time. Sure.

Shaun (01:19:35):
Thanks, John. Last one, that was an easy outro

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