Masters Series

Wouldn't it be great if you could go back in time to tell yourself the things you know now! If you're at the beginning of your startup journey, this podcast gives you the benefit of experience from two top founders. Alex Louey is the founder of Appscore, the team behind Yarra Trams famous Tram Tracker app. Alex knew nothing about building apps when he went into business, but he knew all about project management. He recommends working with your strengths and surrounding yourself with people who can do things that you can't. Shan Manickam is the MD and owner of warehouse solutions business Cross Docks Australia. Shan tried to go into business through a management buyout which failed, but it pushed up the price for the buyer, so they sacked him. That was enough to put a fire in his belly to form his own company. He recommends hiring for culture rather than skills. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success

The best way to find out what's involved in starting a business is to ask a founder. In this podcast, we've done the asking for you, with two experienced entrepreneurs who are happy to share their secrets to success - and their tips for avoiding failure. Ben Sze is a Co-Founder of Edrolo, an educational tech company that is creating better outcomes for students. Ben points out several key things that fresh founders should keep an eye on - not least of which is time. There's a time management practice here that you'll find invaluable. David Fastuca is a Co-Founder of Ambisie, a business putting entrepreneurs in front of school students to broaden their horizons. David founded his first business at the age of 14 and it has had many different incarnations since then. He says we live in a lucky country where if all else fails, we can just go get a job - so have a crack at founding your own business. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share thei

When things go wrong in business, it can feel like the whole year has taken a turn for the worse. Will things ever get better? These founders say yes! And while it may not appear that way at the time, every challenge in business is an opportunity to learn. Mia Klitsas & Jeff Gore are co-founders of feminine hygiene brand Moxie. Whlie they have solved the problems of tampons getting lost in handbags, they have created a few challenges for themselves that have been difficult to overcome. Mia and Jeff point out the importance of profit over revenue and focussing on what's important. Tom Harley is the co-founder of Harley & Sons Roofing. After rounding up his plumbing brothers to work with his dad, Tom has led the way in developing a business that is doubling in size each year. Tom says if you don't know something you have to get out there and learn it. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Th

Businesses connect directly with their customers through websites, apps, social media and anywhere else that will hold some well crafted content. The common thread among all these channels is words - words which can wield a lot of power! In this podcast you'll get a masterclass in the art of copywriting and a content strategy to put them all to good use. Georgina Laidlaw is a copywriting specialist with the experience (and pedantry!) of an english teacher. Georgina works with brands like REA, Aconex and CyRise to help them express themselves clearly. She warns that the written word has no tone of voice which leaves it open to misunderstanding. Hannah Kallady is a Digital Strategist with Ntegrity where she works with brands to get their words in the right place through communication strategies. Hannah believes strongly in the power of the story to connect and even stimulate our minds in ways we don't quite understand. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entre

One of the best ways to start a business is to create a solution to a common problem. Then, rather than trying to convince people to buy something they may not need, you can offer something of immense value. Ben Trinh is the founder of Life Ready Physio & Pilates. Fresh out of university, Ben realised there was a fundamental problem in the physiotherapist's business model. His solution has grown to 30 locations and over 300 employees in less than a decade. Demi Markogiannaki is one of the founders of WeTeachMe. Demi worked with her co-founders to create a solution to help teachers find their students - but that wasn't the solution they were looking for. After listening to their customers, WeTeachMe grew to become the go-to marketplace offering hundreds of classes to thousands of students. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Thank you to Jahzzar for the music. Masters Series is presented by W

Failures are part of the business journey, but it's nice to avoid them and even better to learn from the mistakes of others. In this podcast you'll hear how one man is using his experience at the bleeding edge of digital marketing to help shape the startups of tomorrow. Kristen Holden is the Startup Manager at MYOB where he helps founders to skill-up before they scale-up. He cut his teeth in digital marketing in the late 1990s before spamming was frowned upon and the holder of the most domain names controlled web traffic. Kristen explains the mistakes he made in his early career and describes his hopes for a new wave of startups. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Thank you to Jahzzar for the music. Masters Series is presented by WeTeachMe. The Masters Series podcast is produced by Written & Recorded. The views expressed by the contributors on this podcast and linked websites are not necess

Podcasting offers businesses a way to connect with their customers that is personable and valued. It enables brands to reveal their personalities and provides consumers with useful information and entertainment. This podcast about podcasting outlines the key considerations in creating a podcast for your brand. Serpil Senelmis is the co-director of content creation agency Written & Recorded. As a journalist for hire with decades of experience in radio, television, newspapers and marketing, Serpil helps organisations to tell their story. She steps through the podcast creation process from concept to publication. Corey Layton is the Content & Marketing Director with podcast hosting platform Whooshkaa, where he has led the production of successful podcasts from Mercedes Benz, Facebook and the City of Sydney. Corey warns of the pitfalls in podcasting and names the secret ingredient in reaching your audience. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneu

If there's one thing entrepreneurs all agree on, it's failure. Some of us fear failure so much that it stops us from ever taking the first step in business. For others the promise of success is enough to get us over the line. In this podcast you'll hear from founders who have looked failure in the face and lived to tell the tale. Anou Khanijou is the Managing Director of Anouconcept, but she created her first business before the age of 18. Starting with a successful Thai restaurant, she then created another restaurant, followed by a nightclub. Then came an almighty failure, one she's determined to never repeat. William Du & Carolyn Wong are co-founders of giftware retailers Short Story. Growing from market stalls to department stores, this couple has seen success and failure - often in equal measure. William and Carolyn share are enjoying success, but share their failures in the hope that you won't suffer the same fate. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups an

There's a lot of nitty-gritty that doesn’t always come to mind when you think about building a business – technical, legal, marketing and more. In this podcast you'll hear how two successful founders navigated some relatively uncharted waters. Frunch Nazzari is the founder of Rooftop Cinema on the top of Curtin House in Melbourne’s CBD. Since 2003 Rooftop has been showing movies under the stars with the best views in town. Frunch shudders when he thinks about the moment in his mid twenties that he called the city council to get a permit to show movies on the roof. For Cupcake Central Co-Director Thin Neu, building a business is a bit like following a recipe. His advice is to have the right people in place to help you and never cheap out on getting good advice. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Thank you to Jahzzar for the music. Masters Series is presented by WeTeachMe.

Working with your family can be challenging, but incredibly rewarding. Afterall, who can you trust more than those people closest to you? In this podcast you'll meet two successful business operators who have taken their family businesses to the next level. Penelope Sattler is the General Manager of her family's golf course - Barnbougle Golf, which has been voted as the Best Australian Golf Resort. Penelope really likes her family and says business rewards are even sweeter when shared with them. Georgia Beattie got her start in her dad's wine making business before studying entrepreneurship and taking on the CEO role at Startup Victoria a few years ago. She's now running her own business which is bringing startup skills and mentality to big corporate players. Georgia says one of the key benefits of working with family is the transparency and trust in management. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to s

Sometimes it takes a bit more than a spark to jumpstart a business. Putting your idea in action takes time, effort and money - but there's a few more tools at your disposal to get your startup started. Ben Cohn in a Co-Founder of TAXIBOX, the mobile self-storage solution that brings yellow cubes of joy to your front door. Ben did a lot of on-the-ground research to jumpstart his business. He explains his approach to making sure TAXIBOX customers always have a remarkable experience. Ben Stickland is the Founder of Alliance Software and has spent a lot of time and money in the startup space. Ben says the first three years of business are like walking up a see-saw, then things start to level out and become a bit easier. He says he loves running experiments to see what's going to work in his business. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Thank you to Jahzzar for the music. Masters Series is presented

Women face more challenges than men when it comes to starting a business, but that doesn't stop them following their passions. Mini Latif is the Founder of Ottoman3. In this podcast she reveals that as a 7 year old she thought everybody grew up to run a business. At that age, she also came up with the original concept for Ottoman3. Kara Breadmore is the Founder of Ka'llure Jewellery. It was Jewellery that found Kara and became her passion. Kara explains how her business is not about making shiny things, but telling the stories of her clients. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Thank you to Jahzzar for the music. Masters Series is presented by WeTeachMe. The Masters Series podcast is produced by Written & Recorded. The views expressed by the contributors on this podcast and linked websites are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher.

There comes a moment in every startup when the brand develops its own personality and characteristics, separate from those of the founder. The next challenge is to build it into a powerhouse brand. In this podcast you'll hear from a brand builder and a brand whisperer. Nathan Chan is the Founder of Foundr, the magazine that profiles entrepreneurs. Nathan started Foundr at the top by interviewing Sir Richard Branson - he then gave away that copy of the magazine to supercharge the Foundr brand. Since then he's interviewed Arianna Huffington, Mark Cuban, Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss and he shares their insights and his own in this brand building masterclass. Stephen Esketzis is the marketing funnel mastermind and Founder of Digital Marketers Australia. He launched his first business straight out of high school with the Meggle App which hooked people up with their nearest bar or nightclub. Building a 10,000 strong network for the app took Stephen deep into the world of digital marketing. Today he builds marketing

Most startup founders build their business around their passion. Tech geeks build IT companies, food lovers open a restaurant, and social media addicts establish marketing firms. While your passion may fuel you to start your own venture, you need more than that to sustain your business and keep it going.  Sheryl Thai founded Cupcake Central because guess what - she loves cupcakes! Her passion has risen out of her kitchen to 5 store locations across Melbourne with millions of cupcakes served and just as many diets broken! Sheryl describes how she discovered her passion and what she did to be able to enjoy the sweet taste of success. Kym Huynh is a Founder at WeTeachMe and the driving force behind Masters Series. Kym discovered his passion for teaching after a bad car accident prompted him to think about what was important to him in this life. He's now planning to turn his passion into the world's biggest school without campuses. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of st

Building a business with employees involves culture. Good or bad, every organisation has one. Healthy cultures with engaged employees have more effective teams and better business performance. This podcast looks at how to keep culture from turning sour. Tristan White founded The Physio Co in 2004 - 5 years later he had 20 employees and what he calls a great big mess. After addressing his organisation's culture, Tristan has grown from 20 to 150 happy, engaged and enthusiastic employees in less than a decade. Lisa Spiden is the Founder and Managing Director of fibreHR and Roster Right. Working in HR in London and Australia, across banking, fast-moving consumer goods, IT and communication, Lisa has seen the best and worst of cultures. With a great culture comes discretionary effort from employees, which Lisa says is the best way for your business to set itself apart from the competition. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their expe

In Masters Series we regularly bring you real-life stories from entrepreneurs and start-up founders. In this episode we turn the reality up a notch to bring you tales from the edge, with two people who had very different experiences during the GFC. Jamie Langham is the CEO of Absolute Immigration who help businesses and individuals migrate successfully. Jamie's business in Melbourne was going well in 2008, so he decided to put on a General Manager, and expand into Brisbane with an office and three staff. The GFC peaked a week later, but that wasn't the only challenge the universe had in store for him. Graham Van Damme is the Managing Director of Jag Capital. As a mining engineer, he bought into the business he was working for and began growing profits immediately. In 2008 he sold the business to private equity with the promise of even more ongoing profits. When the GFC hit a few months later, he realised his promise could be a little challenging to deliver! Masters Series puts industry professi

Data is the key to modern business and there's so much of it about that the challenge is less about how to get it and more about how to process it all. Gary Tramer is the Co-Founder of LeadChat who are responsible for those little pop-up boxes on websites that ask if you need any help. Gary explains that he's now taking his experience with data in e-commerce and applying it to bricks and mortar retail - to provide more information about physical shoppers when they walk into a store. Simon Mathonnet is Head of Digital Strategy at Splashbox. He's obsessed with data and digital marketing. Simon shares how he uses data to help startups and long-running businesses to achieve their goals.  Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Thank you to Jahzzar for the music. Masters Series is presented by WeTeachMe. The Masters Series podcast is produced by Written & Recorded. The views expressed by the con

While profit fuels a business, it's growth that is the real reward. Steve McLeod established his first company, Fire & Safety Australia in 2007. Today the business has revenues in excess of $10M and employs 150 people across Australia. Steve delivers a masterclass in how to grow your business. Rory Boyle founded Hampers With Bite with his brother Nick in 2004. It's actually one of a group of companies that the pair are Directors and Owners of, including Wholesale Promotions, Tastebuds and of course Hampers with Bite. Throughout their growth, the Boyle brothers have held onto the family business feel of their companies and put the customer at the centre of all they do. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Thank you to Jahzzar for the music. Masters Series is presented by WeTeachMe. The Masters Series podcast is produced by Written &am

Getting your idea out there and into business is one thing, but how you take the next step to build it up can be a challenge.  Hannah Vasicek is the Founder of the designer jewellery label Francesca. When she started selling her handmade designs at Hobart's Salamanca Market she had an idea that she might like to have her own shop one day. Less than 10 years later Francesca has a shopfront in Hobart and Melbourne with online sales going globally. Hannah explains her bumpy road to building the business and provides a glimpse into what's next for Francesca. Tobi Skovron is the Founder of co-working space CreativeCubes.Co. But first he invented the Pet Loo and built a business that he sold after a decade. Tobi describes the challenges of relocating to the US in the middle of the global financial crisis (GFC) and outlines his plan for enabling more entrepreneurs with CreativeCubes.Co. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experienc

Dreaming big for your business is a good exercise to prepare for that moment your startup takes off. What will be the biggest challenges? Andrew Hardwick founded strategic creative agency Hard Edge in his home 12 years ago. Today the award-winning business works with Mercedes Benz, Telstra and the National Road Safety Partnership. Andrew explains how he overcame the challenges in those early days. Joe Woodham is the founder of Torii Recruitment, specialising in finding the right team members for the IT sector. Joe describes the benefits of working alongside his competitors and how he consults them for advice. Masters Series puts industry professionals in front of a room full of startups and entrepreneurs to share their experience and secrets to success. Thank you to Jahzzar for the music. Masters Series is presented by WeTeachMe. The Masters Series podcast is produced by Written & Recorded. The views expressed by the contributors on this podcast and linked websites are not necessarily endorsed b