Scaling and selling complex businesses with Ben Shapiro: Dataweavers

Join host Lee Stevens as he sits down with Ben Shapiro, founder and CEO of Dataweavers, to discuss business, entrepreneurship, and technology. In this episode, Ben shares his experiences in the tech industry, his thoughts on AI, and how his company secured Series A funding. Tune in for valuable insights and advice from a successful entrepreneur.

Hear how some of Australasia's most interesting and successful people are utilising People, Technology and Processes to live a productive life.

For more information on Lee Stevens visit www.leestevens.co

Sponsored by workforcery.com

Episode Transcript

Lee Stevens (00:08):
Welcome to the Time and Motion podcast with me,
your host, lee Stevens.
For over 25 years, I've workedwith businesses all over the
world to improve the technologyand the people within them.
In this podcast, I share someof my experiences and I chat to
guests who generously sharetheir stories of how to or, in
some cases, how not to live aproductive life.
I hope you enjoy the show.

(00:28):
Hi Ben Ben Shapiro from DataWeavers.
Hey Lee, how are you, mate?
Very good, very good.
Thanks for taking the time forthis second go at the podcast.

Ben Shapiro (00:46):
It's a pleasure to sit down and have a chat.

Lee Stevens (00:48):
As I was just explaining off air, I think it
was the first or second week I'darrived in Brisbane and I've
arrived very flustered andprobably not putting my best
broadcast OS on and, yeah, wasit in the right frame of mind?
So really kind of you to go atthis a second time, no mind.

(01:09):
So really kind of you to to togo at this the second time.
No, my pleasure, my pleasure.
Yeah, it was a good chat,perfect, all right.

Ben Shapiro (01:12):
So maybe it's, uh, it's good to kind of just remind
the listeners who you are andyeah, yeah, what's your life all
about so well?
You know my name is ben shapiro, but, um, I'm not the american
guy.
I use that one as a as a bit ofa funny skit.
I actually had someone in gymthis morning come up to me.
He goes are you really benshapiro?
Do you get shit for that?
I'm like, no, no, peoplerealize I'm not the real guy
when they look at me at themoment.
Um, current startup is dataweavers and we're essentially a

(01:32):
platform as a service thatautomates and manages cloud
infrastructure for site core.
That's a big digital experienceapplication and the basis of
that is that we organize andmanage all the infrastructure so
the people who use the platformcan actually spend their time
building good and great digitalexperiences.

Lee Stevens (01:48):
So a very tech-heavy business, yeah, and
we'll come on to that in amoment, and it's sort of you
think about where we're at.

Ben Shapiro (01:53):
We're sort of in the back house, so we actually
the back of house side of things.
So people, we enable people whoare front of house to actually
get more done and we reallymanage all the back of house
logistics around coreinfrastructure and cloud
infrastructure.

Lee Stevens (02:04):
So essentially it's all the big sites and the
customer experience platformsthat you use for those big sort
of global corporations.

Ben Shapiro (02:09):
Yeah, they tend to be.
Our customers are reallyenterprise organisations and
sort of billion dollar plusorganisations, so large number
of people typically have somesort of product or service to
sell through that cloud channeland cloud platform and they
spend most of their time eitherensuring compliance for the

(02:31):
content that's out there orenabling sales channels to make
things happen through thesedigital platforms as well too.
So they unfortunately spend alot of time managing
infrastructure, which is likethe techie stuff which has
nothing to do with what theirjob is, but they have to do it
and so, yeah, that's where ourniche is.

Lee Stevens (02:46):
We kind of make that easy streamlined and
automated what would be some ofthose larger companies or large
organizations?

Ben Shapiro (02:54):
that you host?
Are you allowed to say yeah?
I just refrained from saying,but I probably can say you know,
there's sort of the likes ofToyota Global Payments.
Subway got Stanford Hospital aswell too.
In America Beckman was a clientthat just went live today
actually.
So, yeah, so sort of largeenterprises and that's a mixture
of, obviously, automotive,there's health and life sciences

(03:15):
, financial services, so we getacross, you know, quite a large,
varied number of industries,but that's more of a reflection
of those industries looking foran enterprise, you know, digital
experience platform that theywant to use and sort of
integrate their data, which iscoming from a CRM or coming from
an ERP or something where theircustomer data sits, and

(03:36):
actually having that exposed outthrough the web.
So there's not a lot ofenterprise-grade systems that do
that.
So there's only a few choicesin the market.
Yeah.

Lee Stevens (03:45):
Okay, and we did talk about this off there, um,
but brisbane, your brisbane boyborn and bred yeah, what's your
story?
There I was going to ask thesecond question, everyone asking
brisbane, which is what schoolyou went to?
Yeah, um, so, yeah, I can, I'mdefinitely, I'm definitely
brisbane born and bred.

Ben Shapiro (04:00):
So, um, for my sins , um, and you know, like I think
actually quite fortunately,because if I look at what I've
done out of brisbane, I'vealways been an entrepreneur.
I don't know anything but beingan entrepreneur and that sort
of facilitated a lot of things.
I've, um, you know, fortunatelybeen able to be, um, create and
have experiences around, so, um, I went to grace college, so

(04:22):
that's kind of uh, on peninsula,redcliffe Peninsula.

Lee Stevens (04:25):
I know where that is.

Ben Shapiro (04:26):
now you do yeah, so you know nice place, but I
wouldn't say it's part of thebroader school, the big, you
know, the Brisbane SchoolNetwork.
They're certainly not part ofthat.
But yeah, it's interesting tokind of see how that really
didn't have any effect on what Idid.
In fact it had zero impact onwhat I'm doing.
Yep, and then uni UniversityWent to Griffith University and

(04:53):
did a essentially back then itwas a Bachelor of Arts, but now
it's a Bachelor of Business inLeisure Management, so sort of
sports administration.
I was pretty heavy into sportsat that stage.
I'd come from a sporty family,my sister's an Olympian softball
in 2000, 2004, and uh, Iactually was sailing quite a lot
too at that stage, so doingquite a lot of world
championship type sailing andsort of put on a world

(05:14):
championship as well too.
So I um, you know that that formy, I guess, for my sins and
what I do, it just was, you know, a little bit different from
what was happening as well too.
I got myself out of Brisbaneand kind of into the global
stage and things.

Lee Stevens (05:29):
Yeah, and then early career.
What did that look like?

Ben Shapiro (05:31):
Early career was pretty much out of school, dad
introduced me to a guy he workedwith at Ericsson and Ericsson's
like big telecommunicationsprovider.
They were working on a bit ofsoftware that actually optimize
radio networks and um, so radionetworks being mobile phones,
these things are radios, yeahand uh, back in the day, um, you

(05:52):
couldn't actually measuresignal strength unless you're
inside a van, you know, with awhole bunch of antennas and
stuff and you drive around andfind that, and they had a whole
bunch of those guys going aroundmeasuring signals, brought it
back to their planning stationand then kind of went through
and said, well, for every bigbit of infrastructure they had
their sort of infrastructure isthe big telephone poles you see,
with the big lobes of radio offthe top of that.

(06:14):
For every one of those, whichis about a million bucks each,
how do you actually get enoughsubscribers on the network with
having as few of those bits ofhardware as possible?
And it was an impossible task.
The optimization task was likeyou had to do it manually.
Anyway, these guys in Swedenfigured out a way to do it
automatically and they were alllike, yep, no, that doesn't work
.
They had a pilot site in MTN inSouth Africa and I got

(06:40):
introduced to them through mydad and they basically said oh,
I said, said can I have thesouth part of the world?
And you know, let me see if Ican sell it.
It was like 17 end up sellingit to bell, south and new
zealand actually, which isvodafone, and I still remember
the day kind of rocked in with alittle laptop and a three and a
half inch floppy drive and uhwent up to the engineering guy
and I said I can I have aextract of your g tool, Grabbed

(07:04):
it, ran it for 14 minutes,handed the thing back to him,
the floppy drive back to him,and he said thanks, kid, I'll
see you later.
And that was pretty much theconversation.
Okay, righto, I'll give you acall tomorrow.
I'm staying in Auckland, we'llsee how it goes.
And effectively gave us a callthe next day and, yeah, a
million dollar sale, and so thatwas pretty interesting and that
kind of we kind of.

(07:25):
I took that as a greatexperience and had a fair bit of
commission out of that.
So I kind of went and then soldBell South sorry, Bell South
was the first, and then OptusAustralia, Hutchies in Hong Kong
, Smart in the Philippines aswell too.
So as a sort of 17, 18, youknow, 19 year old, it was like
just that was my first thing, socutting your teeth in that

(07:46):
telco world and you know quitecomplex, complex solutions.

Lee Stevens (07:48):
I'd say quite complex.

Ben Shapiro (07:48):
Probably uh helped you in uh later in your career
and I think probably that's theyou know, that's the pattern I
figured out.
It's yeah, a lot of these bigsystems, you know, take a lot of
understanding of how they allgo together.
And and then I still sort ofjoke today that a lot of people
who work in the internet don'treally understand how the
internet works and um, but byunderstanding how things go
together, it's, it's to me, it'slike plain as day.

Lee Stevens (08:09):
You can easily say these things actually need to
work in a certain way yep, andthen when we spoke last time, we
found out we had some sharedconnections in the, the
microsoft consulting space sohow did you end up in that world
, in with, uh, mr newman, yeah,vandy, yeah.

Ben Shapiro (08:21):
Yeah, so well actually.
So the back-to-back story isBrian and I I had a.
So after the work I did intelecommunications, I actually
started a software business.
It was a service and softwarebusiness and we did SharePoint
and we did a bunch of earlySharePoint stuff and a lot of
old guy called Brian Cookactually did some early

(08:42):
SharePoint stuff and we wereboth gold partners and I
actually met Brian at aMelbourne offsite at a really
nice beautiful old countryestate down there and we got on
like a house on fire and we'relike, oh man, we should be doing
things together.
And at that stage I was kind ofstill trying to grow my business
, which was called DCG and we'redoing a lot of work in

(09:04):
Queensland government like had alot of ministerial connections
as well too, and we sort of wentfrom yeah, let's do something
together to it didn't sort ofcome together the way, for no
real particular reason either.
It sort of just drifted alittle bit.
And then I got a little bitdefocused because Avanade came
on the scene and I sold mybusiness to Avanade, and a

(09:30):
little bit defocused becauseAvanade came on the scene and I
sold my business to Avanade andanyway, so we kind of separated
for a while there and still keptin touch, and after I'd kind of
gone through the Avanade, youknow journey, and you know Brian
laughing at me or whatever, andyou're saying you know working
for the man again instead of youknow going working for yourself
interesting, really interestingjourney.
That for me, though, was Ibasically end up being a you
know Siebel architect, soworking on Siebel and CRM
systems.
So big, complex CRM systems,ato change program, also in

(09:50):
yourself, I've come licensing,so I actually put those, you
know, worked heavily in thosetwo systems and got bored of
that, thinking probablysomething.
What you said is um, I actuallydon't know.
I'm a pretty bad employee, and,and I kind of you kind of lose
yourself a little bit and goingI'm not sure if I really want to
do this, and you know what,what do I really, what do I
stand for, etc.
And anyway, I made the choiceto to leave that and sort of

(10:14):
found myself a little bit lostfor a while.
Did we work with jujitsu uphere as well too, which is great
?
I mean, that was awesomeexperience too.

Lee Stevens (10:21):
Um, when you say doing some work with that, that
was working for them Working forthem, yeah.
Yeah, so you're kind of likesimilar to me, right, You've
kind of dabbled with the darkside of employment.

Ben Shapiro (10:29):
Yeah, it actually took a lot for me to take that
job.
I think it was like four orfive months of convincing that I
really wanted to go.
I'm like there's no way, it'simpossible.
Too big and too clunky, I can'tactually do anything with that.
Anyway that's the thing.
Yeah, great, great thing.
It's great to be involved.
But a lot of really greatexperiences there too, and I

(10:52):
guess including sellingmainframes, believe it or not
from being an internet guy.

Lee Stevens (10:55):
Yeah.
So you quite nonchalantly saidoh yeah, I just sold my business
to Bernard.
You know, for the peoplelistening, they were joint, yeah
, they're actually a baby ofboth Microsoft and Accenture.
Microsoft and Accenture.

Ben Shapiro (11:08):
Yeah, so they had a billion dollars to actually get
started, so they had a fair bitof coin to make things happen.
And obviously they're stillvery entrenched in that world
today.

Lee Stevens (11:16):
Yeah, but obviously it sounds like you've sold at
least two businesses, maybe more.
But, I mean just for those kindof listening on that note.
You know you don't just wake upone day and go, yeah, I'll just
kind of sell that business.
So so you presumably you'veeither got a lot of attention in
the right way.
You know doing what you do.
It's quite niche and a lot ofpeople who buy businesses

(11:37):
they're doing it because theyjust don't want to grow it from
scratch right, they probablycould, but it's a lot.

Ben Shapiro (11:42):
They can do it a lot quicker yeah, the zero to
one part's hard, yeah, yeah butfrom your perspective, in terms
of um selling those businesses,you know what?

Lee Stevens (11:50):
did you do anything particularly to on that basis
to think, well, okay, well, ifthat goes and you know, if I can
do this, then I've got morechance of selling?
You know, was you doinganything consciously to do?

Ben Shapiro (12:01):
no, actually no, I think it's the.
I feel like, if you try well,that's not necessarily true.
I think I plan that a littlebit more these days, but back in
the day I was doing stuff Ibelieved in, I loved and really
passionate about and veryfocused.
So again, complex systemsSharePoint in itself is a
completely one of the mostcomplex systems that on the

(12:23):
surface looks like really easyto use and, yeah, we sort of
specialized in that, but we alsodid that was the second thing
we did in that business.
The first thing we did wasactually put took ERP systems,
so Great Plains, navision andSolomon.

Lee Stevens (12:36):
I don't know if you know those.
They're the early Microsoft,the early Microsoft ones yeah,
before they actually went backinto the….
Yeah, so before Dynamics.
Once again for those listening,before Dynamics was a thing,
they had the suite of four orfive.

Ben Shapiro (12:45):
I think it was.
Yeah, they acquired all thoseat the time.

Lee Stevens (12:47):
Yeah, different kind of finance systems and CRM
systems et cetera.

Ben Shapiro (12:50):
Yeah, so we were putting sort of web front ends
on ERP back ends to actually dothe business process part of a
web system.
And that was back in the day.
It was actually reallycomplicated to do.
That was actually a hard thingto do.
It was still using classic ASPfor the programmers out there,

(13:13):
which is like clunky and hardwork.
And so we had a niche in thatsort of building essentially
process systems, really helpingpeople organize everything from
financial instruments to otherinternal processes, but putting
those front endend processsystems on the ERP backends.
And I had this crazy idea backin the day.
It was, like you know, thisinternet thing has got to be a
bit of a mixture of creative, abit of a mixture of interactive

(13:35):
and the tech all in one place.
And I kind of built a team ofpeople who were really great
creatives and really greatinteractive people back in the
day when it was sort of halfwaybetween video and vector
animation, and some reallyhardcore techies who could build
core applications.
And so we just had a reallycool mix of people and did
really cool things and expertisein those more complex systems

(13:58):
led us into conversations withthe Queensland government.
Quite a lot did quite a lot oftheir SharePoint systems with
the Queensland government quitea lot did quite a lot of their
SharePoint systems and yeah, wejust sort of we seemed like the
right acquisition target forAvanade because, you know, I was
working heavily with Microsoftstate managers and all the key
account people.
I was working heavily with allthe Accenture partners as well
too.
So it just, you know, that'ssort of more or less how it came

(14:20):
about and what was thatbusiness called.

Lee Stevens (14:22):
DCG, dcg.
Okay, yeah, so a lot of peoplelistening in Brisbane will
probably have heard it.

Ben Shapiro (14:26):
Yeah, dynamic Concepts was the first name of
it, so I sort of did this in andshortened it.

Lee Stevens (14:30):
Yeah cool, all right, and you mentioned about a
lot of government work inBrisbane and I mean one thing I
would say, having been in thecity for six months, is how
dependent a lot of consultingfirms are on that government
work so yeah, back inChristchurch in New Zealand I
made a point of steering awayfrom governments and councils if

(14:53):
I could, because it was justhard work and the procurement
process it just kind of justweren't worth.
I suppose the end result butwhereas it feels like slightly
different here the fact that youhave to do it because there's
so much work in Brisbane that'sgovernment related.

Ben Shapiro (15:04):
Is that a fair statement?
Yeah, look, and probably alittle bit of a bias to what
I've actually seen as well too,but in all the sort of
iterations there's alwaysactually except for this
business we're in now very much.
If your Queen's End focused andBrisbane-oriented, then there's
so much government work it'snot funny.

Lee Stevens (15:22):
What do you have to do differently when that's the
case?

Ben Shapiro (15:25):
um, I'm not sure differently from what
perspective I?

Lee Stevens (15:28):
think, well, do you run your business differently?
I mean, obviously procurementcycles are different.
Maybe the people that aredifferent you need to consulting
.
Is there anything in particularyou feel you have to do?

Ben Shapiro (15:36):
maybe it's the way I look at, I'm not sure I would
do anything different, and Ithink about who our you know icp
is, or who our customer isreally, and and what are we
trying to serve and how do wefix problems for them.
And I've always probablythought about it this way too.
So I didn't sort of say I wantto fix stuff for government.
It just happened to be that alot of the you know what
SharePoint stands for from anintranet point of view and how

(15:58):
you actually organise knowledgein complex systems.
There's a lot of use cases for,you know, organisations systems
.
There's a lot of use cases for,you know, organizations who
produce lots of documents, whodon't know what to do with them,
but they need to shareknowledge.
It just happens to kind of be agood use case for that.
And, um, you know, and sort ofsome of the larger commercial
places are part of that as welltoo.
But there's, you know, rightnow back out, there's half a
dozen in 20 governmentdepartments who are doing that

(16:18):
that thing as well.
So so for me it's just you knowwhat's.
I always think about what ouruse case is in terms of the tech
we understand, but then we'rebuilding bespoke as well too.
But also knowing that, thinkabout what the customers need,
you just sort of spin aroundthat and then build a business
on that.
And again, for my sins, I'vebeen doing a lot of complex

(16:39):
sales as well too.
So I know what complex sellinglooks like, and my dad was a
great teacher for that as welltoo too.
So I know what complex sellinglooks like, and my dad was a
great teacher for those as welltoo.
He did some awesome, massivelycomplex sales and both in, you
know, in local government, butalso sort of enterprise, like
Bundaberg Sugar and like andDefence as well too.
So big, long sales cycles, andI learned a lot from that, from
him as well.
So it's sort of I guess it's mycomfy space as well enterprise

(17:01):
I'm comfortable with enterprise,I know how it works and you
just set your organization up todo that.
But you know, win the customerfirst, as you know we were
talking about.

Lee Stevens (17:10):
Win the customer.

Ben Shapiro (17:11):
Go on and back in the day it was all about.
You know I still joke todayaround sales.
It's a contact sport.
You've got to actually go andsee people to make it happen.

Lee Stevens (17:18):
Yeah, and we were sort of off there and, um, I
have some strong opinions onthat.
And so if you speak to a lot ofceos just like I do and a lot
of sort of senior executives,the the common theme at the
moment is that, um, that theydon't want to be sold to, right,
so like, oh you know, turn onlinkedin.
It's just like this tsunami ofpeople trying to sell me stuff.
And you know email, you know,I've just I just put everything

(17:41):
into you know my junk folder, orset my filter.
I go.
How do you sell?
They go.
Oh yeah, we do LinkedIn outreachand we do email outreach.
So it's like everyone's kind oftrying to get attention in a
very noisy world.
And, as I say, I joked.
I feel like there's almost thepoint where you maybe should
send a letter to someone to goagainst the tide.
But I still maintain I think weboth agreed on this that people

(18:04):
buy from people and that neverchanges.
It's just a little bit harderthese days to actually get in
front of someone, which you know.
Yeah.

Ben Shapiro (18:12):
And I think you know the trick that we're
finding as well too.
Obviously we're sort ofglobally, you know, expanding
from Brisbane, and it'srelevance.
It's always relevance.
I think it's one of the thingsthat happens in that sort of
online world, and especiallyLinkedIn as well.
There's zero context toactually why an email got sent,

(18:33):
and perhaps very, very littleresearch as to why it's going to
be interesting for me andwhat's something that they can
solve for me right now, today,and so we focus a lot on that in
terms of how we do outreach aswell, too, for our organization.
So we're very specific.
We solve a very specificproblem in a market that is
always interested in trying tofind and fix problems.
They're big problems.

Lee Stevens (18:55):
And you almost take that approach where you go.
Well, why wouldn't they want totalk to me?
I know they've got that problem, yeah.

Ben Shapiro (19:00):
I always say too that pretty much everyone who's
got their psych core we can help.
We can help them in one way,shape or form, and I guess we're
a help-first organization.
That's how we think about it.
So there's nothing we're tryingto sell anyone.
It's just like we know they'vegot problems, we know we can
help.

Lee Stevens (19:15):
So let's move on to current Current project,
current gig Yep.
So why did that come about, anddid you have a break after
selling the last thing, or wasyou going to work for someone?
How did that idea come aboutand how did you get it going?

Ben Shapiro (19:33):
Well, it's probably a few paths.
So, out of, I guess, theFujitsu days, that was, I guess,
the point when I actuallyreconnected with Brian and got
onto the Andy thing.

Lee Stevens (19:45):
So just explain who Brian and Andy are.

Ben Shapiro (19:46):
So Brian Cook, who I was talking about previously,
brian Cook and Brett Campbell,who were the original founders
of OBS, sharepoint-focusedorganization, very similar to
what we were doing with DCG.
Brian and I and Brodo sort ofhit it off and it didn't end up
getting together at the time,but um sort of made some really
good connections and frameworkson that so it's funny, I was the

(20:07):
obs.
I call them like the sharepointmafia, so I was out with uh,
mark roads, I don't know if youknow mark, so I was out for
dinner with mark and, um, it'sbeen brisbane.

Lee Stevens (20:14):
I I literally I knew he was in brisbane
somewhere went to a post officea few weeks ago, turned around I
was like I know that guy.
It's like it was mark rhodesand so, yeah, we had dinner with
the wives at the weekend and heobviously was another one from
that.
Those obs days, but lots of um,I think, certainly in the
sharepoint world and both in thenorthern and southern
hemisphere.
Um it was, it was definitely uh, like a breeding ground of good

(20:36):
sharepoint people.
And still to this day, I thinkyou know, people are involved in
the microsoft and world and them and the MVP world yeah.
So I think those guys shouldhave a lot of pride with it.

Ben Shapiro (20:47):
I'm very fortunate that I guess my path crossed
with Brian and Brett at the timeand then obviously Andy later.
And yeah, we're doing similarthings and it was just had a bit
more momentum with what theyhad because there was a bigger
market in Melbourne and hadmanaged to break into Adelaide
first.
So anyway, so me on that tripwas, brian called me one day

(21:09):
when I was working at Fujitsuand goes dude, what are you
doing?
And I'm like I'm just kind ofhanging out.
He goes, oh, let's catch up fora coffee, let's catch up for
coffee.
I'm like, okay, well, I'm downhere.
It was down at emporium actually.
He rocks up and he goes.
He goes man, we got to get theband back together and like,
right, oh, what's happening?
He goes.
He's like I was just speakingto microsoft and a bunch of

(21:31):
other planning meetings and he'sreally want you to, you should
start up, get back involved, getget into obs.
You know a whole bunch of sortof um, we're doing well, blah,
blah, blah, all that cetera.
I'm like, yeah, maybe I'llthink about it.
Um, but obviously I'm prettyinterested in trying to connect
with brian and brett and get theguys going back together again.
But I'm sort of a little bitsort of standoffish thinking.

(21:53):
Oh, I'm not sure you know,probably a little bit where
you're thinking, because onceyou come out of one thing don't
want to go back down to another.
Um, anyway, we did, we did thedance and it was like, yeah,
cool, like I'll start.
So I started brisbane fromscratch.
Um, we went from nothing to 24people real quick.

Lee Stevens (22:08):
Mr rhodes is one of those people as well, too um
and uh and then and sort of.

Ben Shapiro (22:13):
After that it was like it was sort of 12 months or
so 15 months.
I went, he goes, come down tocome to melbourne.
I'm like, okay, right, I say Ipacked up and moved to melbourne
.

Lee Stevens (22:22):
Um, Did you have family at the time?

Ben Shapiro (22:24):
Yeah, yeah, just actually.
I started OBS Brisbane when myfirst boy was born, so 13th of
March is when we started 2008.
So you know, and I'm stillmarried to the same person.
Thankfully so.
She's very patient.

Lee Stevens (22:41):
She's an entrepreneur as well, too so so
you had a bit of a time out.
Then, after the you know the,so you so you did the abs thing
moved to melbourne and then,yeah, then what?
How'd you end up back inbrisbane?

Ben Shapiro (22:52):
um, well, actually, after we sort of done, sort of
went through, abs grew that youknow, got involved with an index
team, was on the exec um partof that business, so straddling
both, working closely with Brianand Brett and I was fortunate
as being part of that exec teamwe learned a whole bunch of
stuff Again, got exposed togrowing a business 160 plus

(23:13):
people in the services businesswon Best Place to Work 2012,
beat Salesforce and Google,learned some cool, really cool
stuff around business and peopleand culture and just worked
with some exceptional people andAndy was part of that, another
lady by the name of Alice Hannawho's part of that as well too.
So, yeah, we just had a reallyawesome exec team and yeah, you

(23:33):
sort of think about that.
It's like trying to put thatback together is one of my
little things.
I'm like how do I put a teamlike that back together?
Because that's kind of excitingand um just learned those
lessons and um, we, we beingpart of the sort of growing up
and selling and nintex was goingand flying.
When nintex had just got some abig investment from a um uh ta

(23:54):
associates, which was a couplehundred million, um, the
services business essentiallywas looking to get sold.
Help sell that business toEmpire I was supposed to go with
.
The team chose not to.
At the end of the day Set somenice stuff up for Andy.

Lee Stevens (24:10):
So that's probably where.

Ben Shapiro (24:13):
But Mr Newman, that implies chocolate.

Lee Stevens (24:15):
Yeah, that's right.

Ben Shapiro (24:18):
And I sort of was like oh, I think I need to
investigate new stuff, like lookat what the marketing side of
the world.
So in like the later days ofOBS and Intex and as we were
sort of maturing it, we weredoing quite a lot of marketing
automation, you know with clickdimensions.
And we were one of the earlyresellers of that too, thinking

(24:39):
about how this works and comestogether.

Lee Stevens (24:42):
So those are the guys that essentially were a
bolt on for CRM.

Ben Shapiro (24:45):
CRM yeah.

Lee Stevens (24:47):
They're like you did probably outreach Email.
No, it wasn't outreach, it wasjust really email, just straight
email.

Ben Shapiro (24:52):
Yeah, so it was email, Sort of account-based
marketing, I guess what we knowas now the early days.

Lee Stevens (24:56):
So email these 20 people or 200 people, yeah yeah,
look, here's what they've done.

Ben Shapiro (25:01):
Here are the interactions, here are the click
trails.
This is what people do.

Lee Stevens (25:04):
It seems mad, doesn't it Like?
You look back and you go sure,that stuff should have just been
in the product, but obviouslyit was a different world in
those days.

Ben Shapiro (25:10):
Yeah, the interaction, the ability to
interact with things.
So I was fascinated with thatand I felt like there wasn't
anything to learn, you know,going with the rest of the crew,
even though there are awesomepeople.
Like you say, again, it'sfortunate just being part of
that and that journey and thatpathway with great people, and

(25:31):
we're still everyone's incontact today too, which is
that's kind of really nice aswell.
Yeah, so, thinking about that,where is my blind spot?
What don't I know?
And I was thinking about themarketing stuff.
I've kind of always been sortof broadly connected to
marketing and and sort of Iwanted to explore that a bit
more.
And it's like where can I dothat?

(25:52):
How can I find that?
Searching around, um got found.
My headhunter, um, and basicallythe one of the large groups
called densu was densuu Aegis atthe time.
Um, kind of there was a role inin the group working with the
group chief exec.
When I can learn some thingshere, um, working with some
diversified businesses and sortof going, I sort of thought I

(26:14):
was going to take it.
It's just going to help melearn, um, I might be able to do
some marketing automation stuff.
Surely that, you know it'sthat's where it's.
It turns out that a large partof that organization is very
much focused on ads, and I'm notan ad guy, I'm a services or
product kind of guy, thinkingabout how things go together,
and so ads ain't my thing.

Lee Stevens (26:35):
To create your spark.

Ben Shapiro (26:36):
Yeah.

Lee Stevens (26:37):
It wasn't there, or not as much as others.

Ben Shapiro (26:38):
anyway, it's well.
Look, I love the energy, thecreative.
It's awesome.
It was sort of my early daystoo.
We had some great creatives.
We won a bunch of awards aswell too.
So I was kind of like almostlike, oh, can I go back to that?
It turns out that it's.
You know, that's a very bigdriver of where the org revenue
is, large organisation too, solots of different things.

(26:59):
Um, really, it's a combinationof multiple brands, uh, many,
many brands together, and I wassort of part of the head co and
as a result of that, you're sortof a little bit divorced from
what the brands are doing too.
But you know, I had toessentially get myself pulled
across multiple brands and hadmultiple business cards, and,
yeah, I did quite a lot oftalking and thinking about how I
could put things together froma systems point of view
marketing automation um, none ofthose actually panned out

(27:22):
though.
So, like, I sort of realizedthat I had a limited ability to
get influence.
So I was thinking at the time Iwas like I think I can do this
myself, and so I started abusiness called triggerfish and,
um, it was basically in sayingenterprise web, um 90-day
deliveries, fixed prices andthen continual delivery, because
one of the things that happenswith enterprise marketing big

(27:45):
platforms is that you spend,literally you spend I don't know
, 18 months, 24 months, 36months to put the platform in
and then nothing else happens.

Lee Stevens (27:52):
So here's the question, right?
So I think I'm going to knowthe answer to this already.
But so when you have that ideaand you say I'm going to go and
do it, you probably didn't do alot of the validation and try
and get product market fit, likewe all have to do these days.
You probably just knew at ahunch that it was a thing and
off you went.
Is that a fair statement?

Ben Shapiro (28:11):
Yeah, well, interestingly, I was interested
in HubSpot.
So HubSpot was pretty new backthen and I'm thinking, oh,
there's one platform that can dothat.
It's obviously not superenterprise at the stage, but
it's kind of a mid market and,um, I don't know see how that
goes and managed to kind of helpout with a few, um, great
people, like lane beachley shehad a thing aimed for the stars
so I kind of did some.

(28:31):
I helped out there.
I knew some people who knewsome people and did some work
there and sort of had a bit of aplay and said, okay, this, this
will work and did some goodstuff there.
And then I just I just wentwell, I, I services.
Business is probably for me alittle bit less about product
market fit, because it's like Ican see the need, I can see the
mile away.

Lee Stevens (28:48):
It's worst case scenario.
You just pivot slightly andyeah, I don't know.

Ben Shapiro (28:52):
I've always felt confident in seeing the need
from a services point of view.
So product product is differentbecause you've got to have,
you've got to almost makechoices about what you don't
want to do yeah for.
But services you can kind ofpretty much get it right.
But I was really particular.
I had some experiences wherethey weren't doing the right
thing by the customer and youknow we're doing things that
only devs wanted to do and thecustomer just had to deal with

(29:14):
it and I'm like I'm not surethat I like that.
That's not cool.
Anyway, it is what it is whenyou're talking about big deals,
but that's what I took away.
I went well, 90-day deliveries,enterprise things that have
stood up and actually talk aboutthis idea where you operate it
from day 91.
So instead of being 180 days toset up, it's 90 days and then

(29:35):
operate it from day 91 andcontinue operating.
Because that's really where thevalue is in these big marketing
platforms and digitalexperience platforms.
Value is in these big marketingplatforms and digital
experience platforms when youoperate them is really what you
want to do to collect the dataand see the click trails and all
the things that clickdimensions was doing so in those
early days, I guess, as itwasn't your first rodeo, as they
say, um, you probably knew youcouldn't do it on your own.

Lee Stevens (29:56):
So was you already thinking, like you know, even
before the idea I'm going tohire this person, I'm going to
need one of those, I'm going toneed two of those, what was
those?
Because I think that'sobviously a lot, of, a lot of
entrepreneurs kind of battlewith that.
Right they go.
Look, I know I need thesepeople, myself included.
I was definitely in that camp.
I know I'm going to need peopleto truly scale this business.
It can't just be me doingeverything, or but at the same

(30:18):
time, I don't know if I reallywant to take the risk, but I
think once you've done, it's notrisk.
Once you've done it oncebecause you go well, it's the
only way we can do it right.
But yeah, where was yourheadspace there when you kind of
knew you were going to have toramp the team up?

Ben Shapiro (30:33):
Well, ramping the team was probably different.
That sort of happened after wewon a couple of clients when I
go okay, better find a team.

Lee Stevens (30:38):
Yeah, so you'd still get a couple of wins, and
then that came in.

Ben Shapiro (30:42):
I'm a big advocate of that too, and maybe that's
just my way that I'll go find acustomer.
We'll win the customer.
You know, I've got enough formy sins.
Also, I've got enough skills tokind of get the first bit done.
But then once you kind ofcreate that demand and the
ongoing demand like that's whenoh okay, who do I need to

(31:02):
backfill me?

Lee Stevens (31:04):
Who do I need to backfill me?
And then?

Ben Shapiro (31:05):
it kind of becomes a backfill me, backfill me,
backfill those people.
And now the conversations I hadwith managers today is like how
do you let go of that finedelegate, you know, and it's
still like that whole delegationfor entrepreneurs?
It's actually hard, it's tough.

Lee Stevens (31:18):
It's, it's tough, yeah, yeah, and I think a lot of
it is that you everyone thinksit's because you're a control
freak, which it probably is insome cases.
But I think that the secondpart of it is, I think you, when
you actually enjoy, when wejust talk about it, it's like
when you actually enjoy the workas well, when you enjoy the
delivery side of it.
You know then that that'sanother reason why, because you,
you don't just so like, I think, towards the end of my days, at

(31:40):
brighter days you know I'm anickname with jazz hands.
They used to wheel me out, youknow, go and do some.

Ben Shapiro (31:47):
You know, some, some, some glitz and go and talk
and make him feel excited.
Exactly yeah, and then we'll goand deliver it you know.

Lee Stevens (31:53):
So go and promise the world and you know we'll go
and do the delivery and um, andI think you know that, you know
that was probably, that wasprobably an element of loss
there because you go actuallyI'm not the best person now to
deliver this and maybe, yeah,maybe, it is the rest of the
team, so yeah, so that'sinteresting because I think a
lot of the time you do it,because you're doing it because

(32:14):
you enjoy the work.

Ben Shapiro (32:17):
Yeah, I think to me a lot of my like, why do I do
it?
I was sort of trying to figureout that really early on, but
I've been.
I always explain this as I,when I was a kid, I used to pull
things apart and try to put itback together and sometimes they
worked and sometimes theydidn't.
But I always kind of had thisidea of pulling things apart to

(32:37):
work out how they go together.
And then a lot of the way Ithink about businesses and
opportunities and stuff is likeit's actually a combination of
things.
It's not just the one thing,it's not about pulling it apart,
it's about putting apart,assembling it with a few other
things and taking that idea,which is a left hand, left wheel
idea, and putting it with theright one and and sort of making
it work together.
And so I'm this make it betteris kind of my mantra, like I

(33:00):
always want to make it better iskind of my mantra, like I
always want to make it better.
How do we do things better?
That's what drives me to beinterested in continuing things.
And so to me, the work, the bigwork that I'm trying to do, is
make things better.

Lee Stevens (33:21):
You mentioned about ideal customer profile and
making sure that obviously youservice those people because you
already know the problemthey've got.
But and how much of an issuewas that when you was based in
Brisbane, when all of the bigboys and girls are based in
Melbourne, Sydney and in furtherafield, obviously in the States
and London, et cetera, so wasthat ever a worry or
consideration for you?

Ben Shapiro (33:41):
Well, I guess it was a consideration and I guess
fortunately or otherwise, Iguess early days for me I'd been
involved with internationalbusiness, so I kind of saw that
there wasn't.
I mean, there's differences.
There's clearly differences inthe way things work, but I feel,
like the markets that the ideasthat come out of Australia and
New Zealand too, quite frankly,we're just we're like a really

(34:04):
good test market for a lot ofthese big brands because we're
quite innovative, we take thingsup easily.
We're not big, so if somethinggoes splat really gets to you
know too fired from that and um.
So but I just realized the morethat we think about things and
I'm just what I've been involvedwith, it's all typically
leading edge thinking and andwhen you take that to a bigger
market, uh, even withtriggerfish, when we first got

(34:24):
into america, like um, it feelslike the bar's low.
Like you know, we're just doingwhat we're normally doing and
we're miles ahead of everyoneelse and I wouldn't say it was,
it was great, it was good, it'sdefinitely good work and I guess
we do what we say we're doingand I think maybe a lot of
people don't do what they saythey do.
So that's probably just anotherthing, but the bar is, I think,

(34:45):
from people who have toinnovate.
In Australia there's a lot ofcompetition for a time, like
there's not much customer work,but you've got to innovate.
If you don't innovate, thenyou're kind of like, well, we'll
choose someone else.

Lee Stevens (34:56):
Yeah, and it's interesting because certainly
the move from New Zealand toAustralia, it makes sense, right
?
You go oh, there's probably notas many businesses in
Christchurch doing what I'mdoing, but then obviously you've
times the amount of people by10.
You've probably got 10 timesthe amount of competitors as
well.
So it's all relative.
So, yeah, it's harder.

Ben Shapiro (35:16):
I think, in a smaller concentration, because
you have to then be differentand be better than a handful of
people who are all competing forthe same stuff, and those
relationships are probably, aswe said, just even more
important in those kind oftighter markets.
Well, I think it always comesdown to perhaps that's what we
say you're going to do the trustpeople that trust that you can

(35:38):
see the problem, articulate itwell, help them feel comfortable
that you're actually makingprogress towards it.
Trust that you can get it done.

Lee Stevens (35:44):
Yeah.

Ben Shapiro (35:45):
And obviously the proof is getting it done.
Yeah, but just simple stuff.

Lee Stevens (35:50):
So you mentioned about Americaica.
So once you don't just wake upand go, do you know what?
I'm gonna go and pick a, astate or whatever you know, and
so actually I'll go back a step.
So in the tech world, I thinkeveryone that's the nirvana
right.
Everyone wants to crack america, and all the good advice
haven't been out the conferencesover there is is that you don't
cry and crack america.
You pick one state and then youyou try and go after that.

(36:11):
But yeah, so just tell us aboutyour early foray into the
states.
You know, was that a consciouseffort?
Was it reactive?
You know, how do you get into,how do you take your business
international?

Ben Shapiro (36:21):
um, it actually started in england actually.
So we went to england first andum, because we thought it'd be
easier to sort of, you know,grow into a market that's
similar.
And it turns out that we gotinto America before we got into
England.
So that was interesting.
So we put employees in Englandfirst.

Lee Stevens (36:37):
Okay, in London.

Ben Shapiro (36:38):
Yes, in London, so XOBSs as well too.

Lee Stevens (36:41):
Oh yeah.

Ben Shapiro (36:41):
Yeah, definitely tapping that network.
But so we actually went becausewe had won some business.
We went to a big trade show,presented with a local customer,
around a complex financial.
It's essentially a super funbut, you know, complex way of

(37:03):
you dealing with customercommunications and securing data
and managing everything throughone sort of digital channel.
And just happened to be in theaudience a couple of big brands
who said that same problem.
I have got that.
I would really like to.
We've spent probably two yearstrying to figure it out and
we're nowhere.
So can you help us figure thatout?
So that was our first sort ofconversation.
And then we won a couple ofcustomers in america.
I was like, oh geez, how do we,how do we?

(37:25):
You know, we said, look, reallyhonestly, we're, you know we
don't have anyone in america,but we can sort of help.
You've got someone in europethat will sort of help bridge
the time frame, um, our plans toget to america.
We've just got to kind offigure out how you do that and
so, and they're based in, uh,someone in atlanta, one in, uh,
miami, yeah, and I guess onceagain, the, the, the.

Lee Stevens (37:44):
The reason they're probably buying there is because
that problem is so niche, rightlike problem you're solving is
there's probably very few peopleeven locally for them that
probably could solve.
So they probably have to lookfurther afield because that's
quite a complex and nicheproblem.

Ben Shapiro (37:57):
A lot of what happens in the sort of world of
digital experience is thatpeople hire teams of people,
which is fine, ideally.
When you think about processand how you actually because
we're really talking aboutprocess the best person who
knows the process is the peopleinside the business and and work
through that.
I'd seen that through nintexand obs as well too, and all the
sharepoint things.
You probably would have seenthat too.
It's all about process and soit would make sense to kind of

(38:21):
find the sme, build a team, youknow.
But then there's what happensin big organizations is there's
lots of other things that aregoing on.
Sometimes it's quite hard toconnect between business units.
There's sort of differentagendas that happen, so all of
that just slows everything down.
So you know, it's pretty easyto see a project go from, you
know like maybe not even 90 days, but let's say it's like six
months to 24 months real quick.

(38:44):
That doesn't take much of astretch at all.
And so you know what what wefix really what we're fixing for
in superannuation here, thatthat same problem exists in
every single superannuationcompany in australia, every um,
every pension type company inamerica, and anyone really
forget about the, the um, thissort of the industry, anyone

(39:07):
who's dealing with, um, a cohortof customers who actually need
to be kind of dealt with in avery personalized way.
So that pattern that we've usedcould be used in any sort of one
of those sort of approaches.
So all of a sudden we're notdealing with a superannuation
fund, it's anyone who's gotanything to do with customer and
managing customerpersonalization, because we're

(39:29):
dealing with customer recordsbasically.
So it's pretty easy to kind ofabstract it to say, well, the
core of what we've got is this.
But it obviously makes a lot ofsense to say, well, that
pattern, that same pattern we'vegot, actually is a pattern
we've got in.
You know, it happened to be insort of food and beverage
actually is one of the customersso financial services pattern
that we used in food andbeverage because they had the
same um way they did uh,franchises yep, okay, and so in

(39:55):
brisbane as, as we talked about,you're running a business.

Lee Stevens (39:59):
You're employing a few people in brisbane and
further afield.
What would you say is thebiggest challenge you've got
running a brisbane-basedbusiness at the moment?
It might not necessarily be thefact that it's brisbane-, but
what would you say?
Your sort of top threechallenges are still.

Ben Shapiro (40:14):
I don't know if it's like the challenges.

Lee Stevens (40:17):
I mean maybe.

Ben Shapiro (40:19):
I'm look, I'm a glass half full guy.
So I sort of I do recognize the, you know, the spectrum of
things.
But Brisbane I feel likeBrisbane these days is connected
to everywhere, so I haven'treally had any.
Maybe it's not the centre of alot of Australian-based
decisions.
So you do have to get on aplane and actually be

(40:41):
face-to-face with people inSydney and Melbourne and
Canberra, so that's a reality.
But with COVID that sort ofdisappeared for a while.
So people were very, verycomfortable with just jumping on
a Teams meeting or Zoom orwhatever your flavor is, and for
a while that sort of made sense.
But, as you were sort of saying, I think now there's a little

(41:02):
bit of a tide shifting back theother way.
It's like, actually I wouldlike to speak to someone, I
would like to, you know, I guesswe can do some Teams meetings,
but I actually want to, you know, eyeball you and just make sure
that we're on the same page andyou can feel like I can trust
you.
So, yeah, so that's.
You know.
One thing, and I'd say thatbroadly, is the problem with
Australia we're so far away fromthings that to deal with

(41:23):
anything internationally is, youknow, 14 to 17 to 24 hours of
plane travel to get there, andso that's probably one of the
bigger barriers.
I see is maybe not so inside ofAustralia, and from Brisbane
you could be anywhere inAustralia really.
It's just you've got to beface-to-face with people, so

(41:45):
actually answer the question.
You know what are the barriers,challenges?
Yeah, you know, if we had abigger talent pool here, things
would be easier, for sure.
And I think one of the problemswith Brisbane's identity that
it's sort of rectifying is that,you know, people felt like it's

(42:06):
nicer or better to live inMelbourne or Sydney, and I was
one of those guys.
I moved from Brisbane toMelbourne and lived there for
like seven years, thinking, oh,it's nicer or better to live in
Melbourne or Sydney.
And I was one of those guys.
I moved from Brisbane toMelbourne and lived there for
like seven years, thinking, oh,it's great, you know.
And then actually everyone'slaughing at me, going you're
moving the wrong way, mate, andI'm like no, no, it's good, it's
going to be awesome.
But look, in fairness, Iactually have a very soft spot

(42:26):
for Melbourne as well too.
But coming back to Brisbanefrom living in Melbourne, you
know the weather's generallygreat.
You know it's very, very easyto kind of mix life and work
together.

Lee Stevens (42:38):
Yeah, I feel like the term I use.
So, as you can imagine, welived in New Zealand for 10
years and obviously spent a bigtime in London.
We were sort of born and bred.
But I kind of call Brisbanelike the goldilocks city because
I kind of feel like it's, youknow, it's just right in terms
of population and number ofbusinesses and, um, maybe, the

(42:59):
weather's not quite goldilockscan be, you know, but uh, but
obviously it's pretty pleasantright and you know, obviously we
have a bit of rain, but uh,it's a.
it's a nice place, especiallywith olympics.
And uh, I think a lot of peoplein australia probably realize
that COVID as well, hence thehouse prices and the influx of
people moving into the state.
So I think it's a nice place tolive, it's a nice place to
bring up children, so I thinkthat's all got a lot going for

(43:19):
it right?

Ben Shapiro (43:20):
Yeah, it's definitely.
And I think the point of I wastalking to a friend from
Melbourne last night as well whostill lives in Melbourne.
He's actually one of the goodfriends we met and you know,
sort of lifelong friendship typeguy and then he sort of even
goes.
I love coming to brisbanerather than go to adelaide
because I can walk, I can lobinto the city and I can walk
everywhere yeah and you don'tget mobbed or swamped, and so

(43:41):
there's some like that.
Just doing that and sort ofbeing able to kind of integrate
the work and life thing is iskind of number one reason why
I'd want to move to.

Lee Stevens (43:49):
Brisbane.
I almost feel like you kind ofneed to live in Brisbane, but do
your work internationally,which is probably what you do,
right?
Yeah, that's what I don't see.

Ben Shapiro (43:55):
So for me I'm fortunate I've actually got QICs
on our cap table now too, andto me I actually strategically
said yeah, I definitely want QICon our cap table because we've
got some private investors aswell too, but like 5V and OAF.
But I thought, just because ofthe nature of what QIC is and

(44:17):
the government and you know, soQIC for blows listed overseas.
QIC is Queensland InvestmentCorporation, but there's also
believe it or not, qic has ahuge distribution of funds in
the US and gets large fundsmanagers to look after their
funds.
So they're actually really big.
They're really big sort ofsource of funds, the corporate
investors, yeah, yeah absolutely, um, but there's something

(44:38):
about how that that sort of thattype of I guess let's call it a
serious not that the otherpeople aren't serious investors
are the sort of large investoron our cap table sort of shows.
You know, it's reach, it'speople who they know and a lot
of that is you want to.
We want to leverage a lot ofthat too.
So, yeah, I know it's kind ofnice that that's in the backyard
, right like I feel fortunatethat you know just.

(44:59):
You know, just down the road,literally you can kind of talk
to people who are dealing withbillions of dollars worth of
funds under management.

Lee Stevens (45:04):
So yeah, one of the um topics we talked about
briefly last time we met was youwas involved in a
entrepreneur's organizationorganization which essentially
was to essentially teachentrepreneurs how to be better
business people, how to makebetter networks, etc.
So yeah, how did that comeabout and what's your
involvement in that?

Ben Shapiro (45:23):
still, oh, so you know eos eos eos yeah, so sort
of related but different.
So EOS, yeah, well, again, it'san OBS story right.
So a lot of the stuff we weredoing in sort of growing quickly
in OBS, we sort of read lots ofbooks and stuff and came across

(45:43):
this book called RockefellerHabits.
So Vern Harnish I don't know ifyou know of him, but a lot of
stuff.
It talks about sort of businessrhythms and quarterlies and
annuals and just this sort ofbusiness rhythm that kind of
makes things happen and we, youknow, to some degree we're
taking that on board and we'redoing that sort of meeting pulse
and meeting rhythms.
And I just, you know, we hadsuch a again, such a formative

(46:08):
experience really from the obsworld and the people around.
Um, I was like I want torecreate that somehow.
And then, looking further intothat, I was like who else is
doing this stuff?
And then I stumbled across, um,this book by gino wickman and
there's a link between verne andgino.
They're both part of eo.
They were part of eo together,so entrepreneurs organization,

(46:28):
verne started it and gino waspart of building the Detroit
chapter.
Very, very similar stories andthe EOS stuff just sort of was
easy to consume.
I was actually, believe it ornot, meeting with the guys who
Verne's company, which is acompany called Gazelles, and
meeting with the guy who wassort of representing the EOS
team, a guy called Dan Davis, onthe same day.

(46:48):
The Gazelles guy didn't turn up.
I spoke to dan and um and thenI was like, oh yeah, this is.
This sounds like pretty muchthe things we were doing.
It's very, very similar.
It's like laid out as a, as aprocess, and I guess I'm
probably a process person reallyto um, you know to kind of use
the blueprint to to operatearound, and so I kind of got

(47:09):
involved with that.
I'm a, you know, in EOS terms,I'm a quick start, so pretty
much get into things straightaway and go, yeah, what's the
risk?
Whatever, we'll figure that outlater and yeah, sort of end up
being I'm a real big advocate ofEOS and we use EOS in our
business today as well too.
But for entrepreneurs, when youknow when things are running
fast and you're just looking forsome structure and and again,

(47:31):
my mantra is really my why ismake it better, how do we make
it better?
And some of that is actuallytaking decisions out of what you
need to do.
So if you know how to kind ofstructure it as an organization
and give that structure tosomeone else so you can let go
of it, so get out of the way.
To me that's perfect becauseit's like right set it up,
everyone's comfortable, they getwhat they want and I can also
go, it's yours.

Lee Stevens (47:49):
Yeah, see ya, so we'll put that in the show notes
, the details of thatorganization.
But yeah, I thought for peoplerunning a business that's
looking for a framework or youknow, I suppose you're staying
on the shoulder of giants to acertain extent because you're
kind of learning from others'mistakes and it gives you a
system right.

Ben Shapiro (48:14):
And there's a lot of systems out there.
There is, yeah, and I thinklike, and again, you look at
this and you go we could chooseany number of systems, right,
and it's sort of, uh, my, in myexperience, I think this is just
one of those ones you can adoptand get on and get quickly,
especially if you're trying togrow.
So if the growing bit is the isthe hard bit, how do you
structure in a way that actuallyyou can get yourself out of the
way?
Talk, talk to what you weretalking about before.
What is it about that next setof highs?
What do they need to look like?

(48:34):
How do you build a leadershipteam?
What's the right way to dothings and how do you make that
available to more than just theleadership team in a way that
sort of can be taught to theleadership team first and sort
of flowed down as well too.
So it brings together a wholebunch of concepts there.
So it brings together a wholebunch of concepts.
There's nothing really likeit's not a new thing.
It's actually just it tiestogether a bunch of stuff from a
lot of great management techs,lencioni and others who sort of

(48:58):
a lot of people read thesethings and they go.
Yeah, I'll try and implement it.
It just makes it a bit easierto kind of tie it all together
and do it.

Lee Stevens (49:05):
Okay, and I wouldn't be a proper podcast
host if I didn't mention AI inany one of these sessions.
So I guess from yourperspective you're obviously a
little bit more privileged inunderstanding complex technology
and the benefits for thatbusiness.
And I think for me a lot of theAI stuff has probably been
around for a little while.
It's just that we're a littlebit more aware of its

(49:27):
possibilities.
But if you're a typical, say,business owner, um, in
queensland, you know, orbrisbane, and you know, either
worried or concerned or, youknow, just trying to think about
what ai can do for theirbusiness.
You know how would you kind of,you know, put your arm around
their shoulder and say like thisis what's going to be happening
with ai in the next sort of 10?

Ben Shapiro (49:47):
years.
Well, um, again, it probablydepends what type of business
they're in, but you know, ifit's sort of services, I guess
let's go professional.

Lee Stevens (49:57):
but they make stuff you know like it could be
building or whatever you know.

Ben Shapiro (50:01):
Yeah, well, I think there's like the stuff that's
like easy to access now, whichis probably what everyone's
hearing, it's the.
What are you doing to kind ofget your content?
Taking the I guess the burdenout of that content generation?
So for like, text content orimage content or whatever it is,
take the burden out so that youcan iterate more often.
So it doesn't necessarily whatit does.

(50:22):
It gives you optionality,whereas before, when you're
building content and you'retrying to drive things that are
marketing driven or contentdriven, you spend a lot of time
on the content to actually makesure it's right and you know, or
you're outsourcing it tosomeone to make sure it's right,
then you're checking it.
So ai like fundamentally, justgives you this ability to kind
of iterate that really, reallyquickly.
So instead of spending all yourtime trying to make sure you've

(50:44):
written, you're starting tothink about.
I'm going to spend most of mytime now I'm thinking about is
that the right angle?
How many angles can I check,test and then create content?
That's actually about testing,um and then making.
Because it happens so quickly,you can have lots of, lots of
options.
So optionality is probably theum around.
Whatever the subject matter isum.
Same for images as well, too,and images interesting one, and

(51:06):
now video as well, too, and,like it's, it's combining stuff
in different ways that youwouldn't otherwise.
You'd have to have a graphicseditor or a video editor who
knows how to use these tools tomake these things happen, and
now it can happen really quickly.
And actually, do people wantlong video, or is it actually
short, sharp and what they'relooking for?
So it just creates lots moreoptions that you can then get

(51:27):
lost in and test.

Lee Stevens (51:28):
Yeah, I think what's interesting for me is the
is we mentioned about process,right?
So you know, when you've builttools like sharepoint and even
some of the new ones, like inthe power platform, obviously
you have to understand thebusiness process.
Yes, and it's been interestingfor me some of the recent work
I've been doing is that you, youalmost have to reinvent the

(51:49):
process because you knowessentially the, the labor
intensive, manual steps that youprobably had to do, you know,
five, six years ago.
You no longer have to do so,like you know.
So I mean, I'm always askingthe question you know, isn't a
case of, uh, you know, if youcan use ai, it's actually, you
know, if you could, based onwhat you know, a blank sheet of
paper, what could you get it todo?
And like, in some cases, we'reable to turn 80% manual into 80%

(52:14):
automated.
Yeah, but you can only do thatif you are prepared to rip up
the process, and I think that'swhere a lot of entrepreneurs, a
lot of business owners, probablydon't want to go.

Ben Shapiro (52:24):
I mean I'd probably challenge that a little bit
where it's more that they don'tsee the link between what
they're doing and how that'sgoing to help.
And so I think part of it'sactually shining a light and
saying well in time, quitefrankly, you tell any
entrepreneur or speak to anyentrepreneur, they'll say what's
my biggest issue and it's time.
I haven't got time to do thethings I need to do and I'm

(52:44):
running out of time, and time isa function of not delegating
and then actually notunderstanding it, and that they
could actually find someone todo the things that they think
they're the only ones who can do.

Lee Stevens (52:56):
yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, you know interest, I agree
, and I think the other bigthing that I'm quite passionate
about is I think we've allfallen into the trap of asking
what do you want the tool to do?
So the classic was sharepoint.
Remember, like five, six yearsago, what do you want sharepoint
to do?
And people go, well, what doesit do?
You know, it does a heap ofthings and it can make the
dinner as well, it can sweep uppretty much, and, um, and you,

(53:17):
you know as well as I'll do inthe consulting world, it's the
worst question you can ask.
It's actually, you know what,what's your challenges, what's
your problems?
And it's still, it's amazing howpeople just look at me and they
go well, they go well, justjust make some recommendations.
You know if I don't understandyour business, how I'm meant to
help, but we've all fallen intoa trap and even today I saw
something released.
It's like, oh, it's a co-pilotreadiness, and I was like, well,
readiness for what?

(53:38):
You know what you, what are yougetting ready for?
You know, it's a, it's a toolat the end of the day, yeah, um,
so, yes, be interesting to seehow that maps out.
Well, I mean for me like.

Ben Shapiro (53:46):
Just on the ai topic, I was fortunate enough to
be part of a SAS summit thatwas in Sydney.
I spoke at it, actually on theHR panel too, but some of the
people who spoke from InsightCapital, insight Partners, in
New York, they sort of talked alittle bit about this.
You know what's Gen AI lookinglike and how is it going to

(54:06):
affect things, and really youknow their message is too that
the fact that we can have somuch optionality and things can
be generated so quickly thatactually it's affecting the way
people like google, um, thinkabout how they change the search
results and like it's actuallygot this flow on effect because
the because it really we weresort of limited by our ability
to as humans kind of process anddo things in in that sort of

(54:28):
way.
So it's really gonna.
It's just gonna speed thatwhole world up on that note.

Lee Stevens (54:33):
We had a nice segue .
So, as I mentioned on the wayin um, I used co-pilot to try
and do some meeting preparation.
Um, and it mentioned that dataweavers have just recently
secured series a funding and Ihad to ask you then is that, is
that right, is that?
yeah, that's right well doneco-pilot, so it's obviously
doing some good stuff.
But I suppose, on that note,how much time did that save you?

(54:55):
A lot of time, yeah.
Um, I mean, look once again,that probably would have taken
me good half out 45 minutes bysitting down and, you know,
clicking around the web andyou're looking at your website
and um, it was just.
You know I still did a bit ofthat, but it was it, yeah so
that's 45 minutes there we go.
Microsoft will have that one asa case study, but where I was
leading with that was funding.

(55:16):
So that's another.
Certainly for tech businessesand for SaaS businesses and
software businesses.
Obviously, funding's dried upand there's not as much money
sloshing around, but you guysmanaged to secure money.
Money sloshing around, but youguys managed to secure money.
So, once again, anythingconsciously you did, or was
there anything you kind of hadto think about before you went
and try and raise that money?

Ben Shapiro (55:37):
or you know or not, look, money, money, um.
So raising money is abouttrying to accelerate outcomes,
really.
So, um, when you're competingfor market share, the faster you
can get market share, you know,um, the better.
And when it comes to product,so we've got a fairly clear
target market and we know whothey are and they're spread

(55:59):
worldwide.
So, you know, the faster we canget in front of them, the
faster we can sort of qualifythem to be, you know, interested
in our product.
So really, the way I sort ofthink about funding is it's
really it's like pouring fuel onthe fire to get what you want
to get done, so you've got tohave things working first.
Taking capital too early isalso it's a bit of a trap, I

(56:21):
suppose, because you think thatthat's what's going to get you
to build the thing you want,which look, let's be honest, a
lot of people need that to kindof get the idea off the ground.
And I have a view that you knowa lot of that sort of like
first million dollars orwhatever of that test has to
kind of come from a bit of sweat, equity and sweat, figuring
things out, getting anunderstanding where the product

(56:42):
market fits there, and otherthings like that too.
So when you sort of raise, tome it's about raising to get to
the next level and try and forceit and quicker.

Lee Stevens (56:50):
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, it's a 10x thing.

Ben Shapiro (56:52):
Yeah, yeah so, um, and it's interesting, the market
is like, if you've got good met, like again I'm going to sound
like a financial guy now butlike if you get, if you've got
good metrics and you understandwhat people are looking for when
you're raising money andmoney's always there, so good
business, as money is alwaysthere.
Generally speaking, it just doesput the fear, the fear of God,
into you a little bit and saying, oh God, you know well, maybe

(57:13):
I'm not going to be good enough,but, as it turns out, if you've
got a really good understandingabout what the metrics that
these companies and venturecapital and private equity are
looking for, it's actuallymaking sure you can figure out
how you run your business tothat and taking on board things
as well too.
And so it's got a little bitlike reverse engineer where you
want to be, you know, test thatyou've got something that people

(57:34):
want, reverse engineer whereyou want to be and then kind of
continually change because, likeyou know, even with a clear
target like that, things change.
All the time you've got topivot, markets change what do
you think?

Lee Stevens (57:45):
um, I suppose you have to be careful.
I say so.
One thing I've also noticed isa few people probably had
conversations with four or fiveyears ago, going, oh, I'd never
sell or don't need any money.
And then you see, like you know, recently, that they've sold or
they've done a mergerapparently.
Yeah, I do the invertedcomments, but we all know what
that means as well, and I guessthere's been a lot of that going

(58:08):
on.
I suppose someone always saidto me in down times it becomes
opportunities, as well, yeah, itis.
But I guess, do you thinkthere's because I probably put
myself in that category as wellthere was always a reluctance to
take any money or investmentand then you actually realize
that you can get it, say, twiceor three times as quicker.

Ben Shapiro (58:26):
But do you think a lot of businesses they need to
get over their ego a little bitsometimes to take that money on
board.
I think, well, perhaps there'sa like there's definitely.
I mean, you've got to have egoto start a business, quite
frankly.
So if you don't have the ego,then it's going to be harder to
kind of get to zero and thenfrom zero to one type thing, and
I think it probably woulddepend too.

(58:46):
So I think that if you're inservices, I've probably got a
view of that.
Services businesses like reallygood value from services
businesses when runningprofitable and so being really
refined and knowing exactly howthat business model works and
just being good at making ebitdaand like that's just good
business sense too, quitefrankly.
So, um, when, when it comes toproduct or stuff that actually

(59:08):
you've got to build first beforeyou can get it into the hands
of people, you can shortcut thatby finding customers and doing
it in a joint way as well too.
But ultimately there's a pointwhere you have to actually spend
more money than you've got toactually get to the markets you
want to go, and that's probablywhere it makes sense to.
That's like a leverage play todo things.
So I'm probably more inclined tofor me personally, figure out

(59:35):
how you leverage product andthen services.
You know there's lots ofdifferent ways to do services.
You can join forces, you can.
You know you can find otherpeople.
Sort of like my situation.
I probably should have done, inhindsight merge dcg and obs
together and we're in a verydifferent, different world.

Lee Stevens (59:46):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
And then, as we bring theinterview to a close, just one
final question.
What would you say was your onething that you did that
accelerated your business ormade your business more
productive?
You know, business productivityis a theme of Time and Motion.
Yeah, so what was the one thingyou'd say I did?
And I could look back and goyeah, that accelerated our

(01:00:07):
productivity.
For which business?
For all of them, any businessfor for all of them, any of them
, all, the best one, best oneyou can think of accelerated
productivity.

Ben Shapiro (01:00:16):
Um, for me, uh, it's taking that, so it's, I'm
gonna say it's actually probablyeos.
So and the, and the reason forthat is it's taken all the fluff
out of, out of how and the ofthe framework of how to run a
business, and you can easilyspend a lot of time just dealing
with sort of edge cases ofeverything instead of saying,
well, this is the way and we canrun it.

(01:00:37):
So EOS definitely for me is,and across a whole bunch of
businesses, that's kind of mydefault now.
It's like that's how we start.
Everything starts that way.
Everyone knows how it works, soit's just just, it's a system.
It's a massive time saver.
So, from a productivity like,like you know, we're doing
things more, more and better um,it's, it's a massive tick.
And then I'd say, from aneffectiveness point of view,

(01:00:57):
which I think about, you know,just to put a spin on the
productivity, a lot of peopletalk about productivity because
that's how you measure things,but productivity is very hard to
measure.
I think about these days moreas effectiveness.
So can I do things moreeffectively rather than just
sort of try and measure somearbitrary productivity metric?
And yeah, I'd say even by thatmeasure to anything that we're

(01:01:18):
doing from implementing EOS.
It's like we're much moreeffective at meetings.
We're much more effectiveactually getting our goals set
and done.
We're much more effective atmaking sure that if we miss
something, we actually figure itout quickly, much more
effective that we can revisitthings quarterly and that we can
pivot.
So a lot of that stuff isprobably another way to think
about it too.

Lee Stevens (01:01:38):
Okay, ben, thanks so much for this second attempt
at the podcast and I feel thisone definitely flowed a little
bit better and less noisytractors in the background.

Ben Shapiro (01:01:47):
Yeah, it was airplanes last time.
Airplanes sorry.
And the rain?
I, it was airplanes last time.

Lee Stevens (01:01:50):
Airplanes sorry, and yeah, obviously yeah, and
the rain, I think was prettynoisy.
But, yeah, really appreciateyour time and thanks for giving
me some insights into Brisbaneand the international business
landscape and I wish yourbusiness every success in the
future and I'm sure we'll stayin touch.
Yeah, thanks, Lee.
Yeah thanks mate Cheers, takecare.
So that's another great episode, done and dusted, as always.

(01:02:12):
I'd love to hear from you ifyou know anyone that's got a
really good story to tell abouthow they are or not living a
productive life.
If you want to get in touchwith me, please do so by my
website, wwwliestephensco.
That's wwwliestephensco.
You can email me, lee, at leastevensco, or get in touch on

(01:02:32):
linkedin, which way I also hangout in the meantime.
Have a good week, bye.