Give It A Nudge

Give It A Nudge

Startups, venture capital, private equity, accelerators—we talk to the people making it all happen. Founders, investors, and industry insiders share their biggest wins, toughest lessons, and everything in between. What went wrong, what went right, and what they learned along the way.

Episodes

March 5, 2026 66 mins

In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with David Kenney, the author of Epic Execution. With over three decades of hands-on experience, David has advised the who's who of Australian entrepreneurial fame, supporting tens of thousands of founders from early-stage ideas all the way to NASDAQ listings.


David's journey into the mechanics of business began at 18 when he hitchhiked across Sydney to interview CEOs a...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Dr. Mariam Martin-Mnatsakanyan, the Founder and CEO of AirLabOne. They talk about the reality of digitizing physical assets for complex, high-risk industries like healthcare, mining, and space exploration.


Mariam explains exactly how her embedded technology takes existing legacy machinery and makes it intelligent and self-regulating. This autonomy is crucial for environme...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Tom, co-founder and CMO of Lawpath. They talk about the reality of scaling a legal tech platform to over 600,000 small businesses. Tom shares a staggering statistic: up to 120,000 new companies are registered in Australia every single month. He explains exactly how Lawpath built a system to capture that massive audience.


Starting a business is hard. The standard three-year...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Jacqui Clarke, ex-Deloitte Private Partner and author of Stop Worrying About Money, to talk about the single most important number 95% of people don't know: "What does it cost to open your front door?"


With the cost of living skyrocketing and "inheritance impatience" on the rise, financial stress is no longer just for those struggling to make ends m...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Jevon Le Roux (CEO) and Tahir Rauf (CTO), co-founders of Keeyu, to talk about the single most expensive question in e-commerce: "Where's my order?"


With 40% of all support tickets relating to delivery status and 56% of customers churning after just one bad post-purchase experience, the stakes have never been higher. Jevon and Tahir explain how they built a s...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Crystal McGregor, General Manager at Tech Ready Women Academy, to talk about what it really takes to help more women start, grow, and fund businesses — and why the investment numbers still don’t reflect the performance data.


Crystal shares a career path that starts in local government in Central Queensland (building skateparks, pools, and community programs), then moves in...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve finally sits down with Brendan Malone, Managing Director and Group CEO of Raiz Invest (ASX:RZI), after six years of trying to get him on the show!


Brendan takes us through his fascinating career journey, transitioning from a traditional background in investment banking (RBS) in London and Asia to owning a pub in Newcastle, and finally leading one of Australia’s most successful FinTechs.

<...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve chats with James Sneddon, the founder of Hyphen Health, Australia’s largest network of sexual health and harm minimization telemedicine clinics.


James didn’t start in medicine; he started in hospitality. The idea for Hyphen Health was born while owning a café across the street from a GP clinic, watching patients wait hours just to get a simple script. He realized the system was broken, a...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve chats with Yash Varma, a seasoned tech founder, investor at Empress Capital, and high-performance coach.


While Yash has a massive background in tech (founding Spaarks, investing in Tesla and Moderna, and studying AI at Stanford), this conversation is not about code. It is about code for the human body. Steve and Yash dive deep into the concept of Longevity to debate why the "retire ...

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In this episode, Steve Grace sits down with Albert Patajo, VP Strategy & Operations at Nexl, to unpack one of the rarest outcomes in Australian tech right now: a local startup hitting Series B, and what it actually takes to get there.


Albert shares his non-founder path into the operator seat, from Deloitte to early-stage startups to capital raise advisory, before joining Nexl with one urgent mandate: raise money and build a ...

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December 10, 2025 46 mins

In this episode, Steve Grace sits down with Kevin Lu, founder of Atrium, to unpack the "reverse journey" of leaving a prestigious career in Venture Capital to enter the trenches as a founder.

Kevin reveals why he walked away from investing in some of Australia's most successful tech companies to solve a problem that haunted him for years, which was the absolute chaos of managing professional relationships.

Kevin breaks...

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In this episode, Steve Grace sits down with Arjun — founder of inaam — to unpack how a tragic loss of his father's life savings fueled a mission to disrupt the Australian financial system, and why he believes the local VC ecosystem is fundamentally broken due to a crippling lack of risk tolerance.


Arjun breaks down the dangerous myth that "impact investing" means sacrificing returns (proving it with a portfolio tha...

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In this episode, Steve Grace sits down with Mick Liubinskas — founder of Climate Salad — to unpack how a simple newsletter turned into an industry body representing over 800 companies, and why Australia is world-class at inventing technology but historically terrible at commercialising it.


Mick breaks down the massive difference between scaling software and industrial hardware, why the real funding gap isn't at the start but in the ...

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In this episode, Steve Grace sits down with Tiana Manticos — founder of TX Method — to unpack how her career across airports, QSR franchises, luxury yachts, and global retail brands turned into a repeatable scaling framework now used by founders looking to grow with intention, not chaos.


Tiana breaks down the four-part TX Method framework (Truth, Translation, Transmission, Tempo), why founders should stop obsessing over content ...

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In this episode, Steve Grace sits down with Paz Pisarski, co-founder of Community Collective, to unpack how a small 17-person meetup in Melbourne grew into a global community spanning 18 countries — without paid marketing, without hype, and without trying to be everything to everyone.


Paz breaks down the Niche Cubed framework (profession + location + domain), how Who Not How changed how she makes decisions, and the simple commun...

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Host: Steve Grace


Guest: Christie Jenkins — 3-sport pro athlete (ex-AUS #1), Managing Director at Techstars Sydney, investor (Athletic Ventures; ex-Blackbird), keynote speaker & performance coach.


Christie unpacks how an elite-athlete mindset translates to venture and leadership: covering her leap to the U.S., buying European football clubs, and returning to run Techstars Sydney.


What we cover:

Packing up life in a week...

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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve interviews Caitlin Judd, who takes us through her fascinating journey, starting with her roots in Melbourne, where she studied business and media at Monash University. She shares her transformative experience living in Miami, working across marketing, acting, and even selling high-end art, before returning to Melbourne to pursue a corporate marketing career.

Feeling unfulfilled, Caitlin made...
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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve chats with Tom Waterhouse, a well-known name in Australian bookmaking and online betting. Tom opens up about his fascinating journey, from growing up in a family of bookmakers to launching his own online betting business, TomWaterhouse.com, in 2009. 

He shares how he went from being an on-course bookie to building a business that grew from 100 to a quarter of a million customers in just 18 m...
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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve welcomes Rafael Niesten, founder of Proptech Labs, a company revolutionising property management by handling essential back-end services like maintenance, inspections, and invoicing for residential properties. Rafael, a serial entrepreneur, shares his colorful journey, from running a mobile phone business and starting a youth radio station in Perth to tackling the challenges of the property...
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In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Ben Ford, a fintech expert who’s been shaping Australia’s fintech landscape for over a decade. Ben shares his journey from corporate roles to becoming a key player in fintech, proptech, and logistics, recounting his early days with industry pioneers like Afterpay and Acorns. Beyond business, Ben opens up about his latest project—the Vanessa Ford Foundation, a new initiative i...
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