The Bootstrap - Building Startups from Scratch

In this Founder Friday, we’re joined by Chris Asher, Founder and CEO of Oink Digital to talk about how to hone creativity into productivity. Founder Friday is about works still in progress. Learning from success stories is important, but learning from founders still in the thick of getting to market is just as useful - and sometimes much more realistic. Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/chris-a...

Access to capital is one of the biggest challenges facing early-stage founders, and while most think immediately of VC or angel investment, grants offer a compelling non-dilutive alternative. Despite $100 billion in grant funding available to Australian businesses and organisations each year, many founders don't know where to start or assume the process is too complex. Is it really as difficult as...

In this Founder Friday episode, we’re talking to Dominic Lindsay, founder of Nexobot. Founder Friday is about works still in progress. Learning from success stories is important, but learning from founders still in the thick of getting to market is just as useful – and sometimes much more realistic. With a rich background in e-commerce logistics and innovative facility design from his time at Aust...

Failure isn't the opposite of success - it's the stepping stone to it. Every entrepreneur faces the inevitable question: when do you push through, and when do you pivot? How do you read the subtle signals the market sends about whether to accelerate or pull the plug? In this episode, Benjemen Elengovan, Founder and CEO of MyGigsters, shares his entrepreneurial journey through both triumph and setb...

In this Founder Friday episode, we’re talking to Elleesha King, founder of Pulsatile Innovations. Founder Friday is about works still in progress. Learning from success stories is important, but learning from founders still in the thick of getting to market is just as useful - and sometimes much more realistic. Elleesha is an experienced ambulance paramedic and registered nurse who saw opportuniti...

Until AI replaces the need for humans completely, building a team remains a crucial part of building a startup, and the need for other humans to help get things off the ground often comes before the budget to hire them, so some clever thinking is required. Megan Luttrell - founder of Kairos Recruitment and Aussie Founders Club - joins Scotty this week for a conversation to work out what's smart, a...

In this Founder Friday episode, we’re talking to Nicole Bouchier, founder of SklChat Founder Friday is about works still in progress. Learning from success stories is important, but learning from founders still in the thick of getting to market is just as useful - and sometimes much more realistic. In this chat, we talk about Nicole’s experience of building and exiting her first company and the st...

Fractional leadership roles are becoming more common in startups and scaleups. We’re more familiar with a fractional CFO or CTO - but what about business development? In this discussion with experienced enterprise leader Andrew Sharpe, we look at the ways that larger companies are embracing fractional leadership in the growth arena - be is sales, product, etc, how it applies to the startup world,...

In this Founder Friday episode, we’re talking to Mari Robert, founder of Inflamed.  Founder Friday is about works still in progress. Learning from success stories is important, but learning from founders still in the thick of getting to market is just as useful - and sometimes much more realistic. In this chat, we talk about the very personal experience that led Mari to the creation of Inflam...

AI is everywhere. Depending on where you are at on the continuum, it's probably the thing that is either exciting you the most, confusing you the most, or scaring you the most at the moment - maybe a combination of all three. The market is struggling with its own confusion, concerns, and fear around AI, and that makes it critical that founders challenge their own biases and misconceptions in order...

In our first Founder Friday episode, we’re talking to Andrew Murphy, founder of Tech Leaders Launchpad. Founder Friday is about works still in progress. Learning from success stories is important, but learning from founders still in the thick of getting to market is just as useful - and sometimes much more realistic. In this chat, we talk about what inspired Andrew to create TLL, his learnings alo...

The Bootstrap is back for 2025, and we’re kicking off with a great conversation with Brenton Anderson from Lovable about the learnings and success stories from the recent Lovable Shipped program. We also have a wider discussion about the impact of AI tools like Lovable on validation and commercialisation - it’s definitely worth a listen! Also, we now have a website! You can check out thebootstrap....

If you work in tech and or with startups and you haven’t heard a dozen people say a version of “we need to add AI” or “I’m building an AI product”, then we've been in different meetings. It can feel like a mess of talk and buzzwords, and honestly a lot of it is, so how does the average founder navigate all the noise and work out what we really should be focusing on when it comes to AI? Gavin Reddr...

What influences the decision to bootstrap a startup as opposed to going down the fundeaising route, and if you decide to go that waty, how do you do it? My guest for this episode, Tom Bruining, stepped out of a long histopry of working in funded startups and decided to do just that. Along with his co-founders, Tom started HowdyGo , a product that allows you to easyilu Capture real, interactive pro...

Most founders don’t see themselves as sales people, and many either try to avoid taking on that role altogether, or offloading it as soon as possible. What is the best way for founders to approach sales when its not a comfortable pair of shoes, how do you know when it’s time to transition away from founder-led sales, and how do you do it? To help me unpack this host Scotty Allen is joined by Gavin...

When you hear the word crowdfunding you might think about that Kickstarter you backed for that groovy new gadget that you may or may not have ever received, or the GoFundMe that you donated to help someone going through something terrible, but until recently you may not think of it as viable option for funding your startup. One person who done much more than think about it is Kane Jackson, Kane is...

At the start, every business is a bootstrapped business. Founders inject their own capital and/or sweat to get things rolling, and then work out what funding model or models is most likely to work for their idea. It’s easy to want to skip through the hard bits and get to the moment where cash is raining down from the sky, but there are things about bootstrapping that give you insights into buildin...

Bootstrapping a startup is not for the faint of heart. If you really commit to the journey, there are plenty of lows and setbacks to face before you reach a high - if you ever do. We know the success stories, but not always the pivots and failures that came before them. So what is building a startup really like in 2024? Our guest for this episode is right in the thick of it. Jo Agresta is the CEO...

Software as a service, or SaaS, has been responsible for much of the explosive growth of tech as we know it. What is it like to found and build in the world of SaaS startups? How does your approach as a founder have to change if you know you’re going to be entering the world of Software as a Service? To help us unpack this we're joined by Kirk Drage, tech veteran and founder and CEO of LeapSheep ....

You may have heard the term "Impact Startup" and wondered what it really means. In broad terms, an impact startup is a business that is designed to solve major societal problems, But what does that look like in reality? What are some examples of impact startups and how do you start? To help us unpack this, we're joined by Annette Rose, founder of the Impact Startup Kids Get Money is a fun, easy to...

Getting a startup up and running seems to come with an endless to do list, and while some things are exciting, others are just plain necessary.  Knowing when you need to formalise the legal structure of your business, what to choose and how to do it can be overwhelming, so we’ve invited Talt Anast from Allied Legal to help us work out w2hat is what Allied Legal is a Melbourne-base firm that f...

There's no end to the list of things a founder needs to think about at the start of the startup journey. Operations  might be seen as something that comes later, but laying the groundwork in the early days, without overdoing it, can lead to a much easier path to scale. Tiffany Ashdown, experienced Operations Manager and Co-Founder / COO of The Product Bus , joins us to discuss. -------- The B...

Do Startups have an Ageism Problem? We recorded our discussion with Kirstin Hunter prior to the WGEA gender pay gap report release, but the discussion couldn’t be more timely. One element of the WGEA report showed that the pay gap for women increases by age range. While you might look at that stat and say it shows the gap is closing generationally, it’s a stark reminder of the additional barriers...

Building the right team is an essential part of early stage startups. Finding a balance of skills, experience, and personalities can truly be a make or break factor. To discuss the best ways to approach talent acquisition when you’re bootstrapping, I’m joined by Steve Grace, founder and CEO of The Nudge Group, a specialist recruitment company focusing on the startup space. The Bootstrap is a produ...

From the outside, achieving investment in your startup feels like a peak achievement, but the reality is its the start of a much steeper climb that has its upsides and its downs. Someone who knows this journey very well is Nick Chang , who has founded and successfully exited more than one company, and this episode he joins us to help shed some light on what you mightn't know about being funded,.&n...