Future Tribe - Business Podcast

On this episode of the Future Tribe show, Germaine and Kelsey talk about rebrands, refreshes, and acquisitions:  Pepsi has a new campaign that didn't hit the mark with it's audience MTV is keeping relevant with a refreshed logo Avast introduces a refreshed brand - and we love it! Mailchimp is acquired for $12 billion! Futuretheory.com.au is now futuretheory.co The maker of Monsterinsights acquires the maker of Easy Digital Downloads LearnDash was acquired by Liquid Web INPUT is the new podcast from the team behind Gravity Forms Join the Future Tribe Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/joinfuturetribe   Find us on socials: https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/joinfuturetribe    Discover who Futuretheory is: https://futuretheory.co 

This episode marks the final instalment of the podcast for 2020 as well as the end of our third season of the show. We couldn’t be more proud of all we have accomplished during this tumultuous year and we would like to extend a thank you to all of our listeners for allowing us to work on a project that we are so passionate about. To celebrate this milestone, we decided to bring on Damiane Muller, Futuretheory’s co-founder and lead developer, to reflect on our recent website launch. In the initial portion of this episode, Damiane covers why Futuretheory needed an updated online presence, the tools he used to develop our new website, and how this project was intimately connected with our revised content marketing strategy. Additionally, Germaine and Damiane discuss why Futuretheory decided to continue using WordPress as its development platform, citing that its open-source nature continues to make creating customised and secure solutions for clients extremely simple. Finally, the episode concludes with Damiane discussing future development trends such as the growing importance of SSL and changes to search engine rankings.   What we talk about Reflecting on Futuretheory’s new website The viability of WordPress Content marketing  The future of website development Join the community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/joinfuturetribe/  Links from this episode https://futuretheory.com.au/podcast/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)

This episode we talk to Alicia Lillington, who works in change and communication. Upon receiving her bachelors in International Relations and Affairs at the ANU, Alicia found herself in a position that all thousands of graduates face every year. She had missed out on the Government graduate programs she had been applying to in her final year of study and had no prospects of full time employment in her industry. Despite this setback, however, Alicia remained resolute and used her networking prowess to procure herself a position in the private sector as a Communications Manager. The experience she garnered in this role then allowed her to enter the public service as a Communications Lead in the Department of Industry. Ironically, her superb performance in various government roles ultimately afforded her the ability to work at the very government agency that she had unsuccessfully applied to after graduating, the Department of Defence.   In addition to her professional accolades, Alicia also has a love of education that has seen her take on a mentoring position in the ANU’s MomentuM Program. Naturally, our guest spends a great deal of this episode talking about the importance of mentoring, and even imparts some valuable career advice that she would often share with her mentees. More specifically, Alicia delves into the topics of how young professionals should network in their industry and seek out opportunities to advance their career. Outside of this, Alicia also discusses her strong belief in the importance of workplace equality and how she is finding different avenues for women to enter male-dominated areas of public service.    What we talk about The value of networking and the tools/events you can utilise to network effectively  Alternate paths into your desired industry How participating in mentorship programs can benefit you professionally Workplace inclusivity Links from this episode https://www.instagram.com/alicia__louise/ (Alicia on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicialillington/  (Alicia on LinkedIn) https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/study/cbe-momentum-program/ (ANU’s MomentuM program) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, Future Tribe. Welcome to another episode on this week's episode, I've got Alicia Lillington with me. How are you Alicia?  [00:00:59] Alicia: [00:00:59] Good. Thank you. [00:01:00] Good. Um, we're, we're both sort of coming off the back of, uh, some, some sort of health issues, very minor, but some sort of health issues. I love that when we're chatting about it, you, you sort of mentioned that you do a lot, and even when you were sick, you were just, just, you know, at 50%, but it's probably still 50% for you is sort of quite high amount of work and output compared to, to other people. [00:01:23] Um, Tell me a bit, a bit about yourself and I guess your, your approach to everything that you do, because I know you wear a few hats and  [00:01:30] yeah, for sure. Germaine so, yes. Um, thank you so much for having me today. Firstly, um, I guess I've worked full time for government as an advisor in the change and communications space, um, kind of where culture and technology meet and then part-time, I love kind of singing, acting, modeling, and mentoring. [00:01:49] So I think it's so important to be kind of that role model for younger people. I think of myself. When I was, you know, at uni or just graduating and I just thought, what am I going to do? And particularly in 2020, um, you know, it's been a bit of a tumultuous year and I think a lot of people are unsure of what to do next. [00:02:07] So I really like to mentor it and just. They that person, particularly as a female in the tech space that kind of, um, can lead the way for people. And then with my modeling and things like that, that I just do as a hobby, I like to share, um, messages around body positivity and pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. [00:02:26] Like I'll try and use it. Sport or something like that. And I just do silly little videos, but I get a lot of feedback from it. And I was initially quite reserved and didn't want to share much, but I found that when I would share, you know, trying, um, you know, skiing for the first time or something like that, um, people reached out and said, Oh, that's like inspired me to try something new. [00:02:45] So that's kind of in a nutshell. I mean, dude, what's. Yeah, as you said, lots of different hats, lots of different things, then that's trying to keep it brief.  [00:02:52] Germaine: [00:02:52] See you in a nutshell, because I met you through modeling cause I do photography. Um, but then I got really hooked into and we really ended up chatting, um, a bit about work and that side of things. [00:03:04] So I guess, I guess we connect on, I guess, both sides of creativity and more of a hobby or something that we, we don't necessarily earn a huge living from, but they're also the other side of, uh, you know, Actual work, if you can call it that. So tell me a little bit about how you got into what you do in terms of your work. [00:03:23] Alicia: [00:03:23] Yeah. Okay. It's a long story. I'll try and yeah. Explain it really well. Okay. So at university studied international relations. When I graduated, it was like around 2013 from university and, um, the job market was really, really rough. Um, so then I thought, what can I do? What's a career that you always have a job in. [00:03:42] So then I kind of went in and did the graduate degree. Diploma of education. I thought if I'm a teacher and cause I love that mentoring, tutoring, that type of thing, you know, I thought I'll always have a job in that space. So international relations education then from there, um, I went back to teach at my high school and I love my high school. [00:03:58] I love teaching, but I just thought, Oh, there's a little bit more to the world. I just was like, I've, I've been here a lot. I need to go out and feather a field, have a bit more life experience and maybe come back as one of those. Cool, like older relief teachers, you know, the ones that just come in a relief teacher and like sing or something. [00:04:14] I'd love to see that one day. I also kind of thought I was like, Oh, I could be like Chris Lilly, a drama teacher doing, um, Mr. G and you know, sort of doing performances for the kids, but that wasn't quite what it was like in reality. Anyway, from there, I really did want to get involved in international relations and I was. [00:04:31] Researching the market. I was looking at embassies. I was looking at foreign affairs and I found this place in Canberra called the Commonwealth club, which is a members based club. Um, I reached out through LinkedIn at the time. I think it was about 2016, 2015, or no, it was actually 2014. And, um, I, so LinkedIn was quite new and you could kind of reach out to people at that time. [00:04:52] Um, and it wasn't, it wasn't a bombarding of all these messages. It was only a few people on there. So I reached out to this general manager at the Commonwealth club and I said, Hey, I'd really like to work for you. Um, I've just, um, you know, you've got two degrees and I I'm interested in international relations. [00:05:06] I understand you have. Quite a lot to do with that space. Um, and he invited me to be a waitress, which I am the most clumsy kind of Mr. Bean type waitress you've ever met. I have tried it actually at someone's wedding. Um, I was there, wait, no, it was not, it was not my best career. I always give things a try, but I would kind of was falling over dropping flights. [00:05:29] Germaine: [00:05:29] And how people like wait staff so much respect. Cause you've got to deal with all these people deal with their food. So people get really grumpy about it. And then on top of that, you've got to balance stuff. So yeah. I mean, I wouldn't even try it so kudos to you to actually actually like try it in the first place. [00:05:45] Alicia: [00:05:45] Yeah, I know. And yeah. Shout out to all the hospitality people out there. It's actually not that easy and you know, some. Um, Hey, we'll convey quiet, um, entitled even about a latte or a drink. And, um, I definitely think of that when I go to restaurants and I th I think it's kind of, you know, influenced the way that I am as a customer as well, working in customer service for a number of years. [00:06:04] Um, but yes, so like, I was kind of doing all of that and, and he kept saying, you know, yeah, you can be a waitress. And then I waited a little while I thought I'll reach out again and just see if anything's come up. And then, you know, again, just, he was offering waitressing. I kind of forgot about it was applying for a few different roles. [00:06:19] Um, kind of it. And this is in the not-for-profit  [00:06:22] Germaine: [00:06:22] sector  [00:06:24] Alicia: [00:06:24] or, um, I was tutoring, so I was a private tutor. Yeah. Yeah.  [00:06:28] Germaine: [00:06:28] But not sort of any full-time employment at the point. And at this point, and you were sort of looking for that.  [00:06:34] Alicia: [00:06:34] Yeah, it was my first kind of, you know, flagship full-time job. And I think, you know, maybe for a lot of the listeners or people out there in the market today, you know, when you take that step into your first. [00:06:44] Your first full-time role, it's quite daunting. And it's a transition from your kind of supplementary roles that you might've done during university, or you might've had, you know, kind of customer service roles or things like that. But you, you really want

On this episode of the podcast, we had the pleasure of chatting with local entrepreneur and recipient of the 2018 ACT Australian of the Year, Dion Devow. Dion is a proud indigenous Australian who has spent most of his adult life using his business acumen to provide opportunities for disadvantaged members of his community. Initially, this took the form of consulting with Government agencies and academic institutions on how to address the issues indigenous people face when attempting to pursue higher education. As time went on, however, Dion began to yearn for financial independence and the ability to make a more direct contribution to the indigenous community. This led our guest to start a multitude of successful businesses (the most prominent of which are his fashion label Darkies Designs and ICT consultancy Yerra) aimed at celebrating his culture and giving opportunities to those who shared his struggle.    Naturally, a large portion of our discussion with Dion centres around his mission to empower indigenous people by nurturing their passion for entrepreneurship. Our guest also discusses some of the reasons why it is so difficult for indigenous Australians to reach executive positions in large companies or start their own business. When asked about his individual success, Dion attributes most of his good fortune in business to great time management, networking, and an organic approach to business development. The show then concludes with Dion sharing a cautionary (yet amusing) tale about a time he ordered hundreds of yoga mats for his company that he just could not sell!   What we talk about Managing time between projects The importance of promoting higher education and business paths for young indigenous individuals Overcoming adversity Links from this episode https://darkiesdesigns.com.au/ (Darkies Designs’ Website) https://yerra.com.au/ (Yerra consulting’s Website) https://www.linkedin.com/in/dion-devow/  (Dion on LinkedIn) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, Future Tribe. Welcome to this episode of the podcast. Uh, we've got Dion Devow this week with us. How are you today? Dion?  [00:00:59] Dion: [00:00:59] Good.  [00:00:59] Germaine: [00:00:59] Thank you. Um, tell me a little bit about what you do and the businesses that you're involved with.  [00:01:05] Dion: [00:01:05] Uh, well, I probably need to start way back when, when I was young, I  had a long career in indigenous working in indigenous health, education and justice. [00:01:15] I'm an Aboriginal international, a man originally from Darwin. Came to Canberra back in 1994 to go to university. And so I worked in the public service, um, helping Aboriginal people, uh, like I said, in areas of health and education and justice, primarily as an Aboriginal health worker. And then, um, went on to. Uh, coordinating and running the ICT indigenous courts and came up basically to minister at sports. [00:01:40] And then I kind of, uh, went into the higher education sector where the Australian national university and the juvenile center helping in supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander uni students, um, with their, with their academic aspirations. And then, uh, about a decade ago, I kind of fell into. Uh, business. So I, uh, created an indigenous clothing line because that sort of gap in the market and going back 10 years ago, that's probably myself and possibly three other clothing labels. [00:02:10] One that had been around already for maybe 20 years before that. Um, but it's still, still going strong. Um, and those other ones that I started with back then have now kind of dwindle away, but now the market's flooded with. With, uh, indigenous clothing labels. And I think that's a, that's a good thing. [00:02:29] Cause like I said, when I started this a couple of months and I'm somewhat of the longest hiding labels because it's kind of, it's been a decade now that had been around school, dark is designed and I use the word, um, deliberately to celebrate, you know, my. Indigineatity. And, um, you know, being my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, all the heritage of being black and I'm used to have used that as a vehicle to promote Aboriginal and Torres shell, to us through clothing and all sorts of different things. [00:02:57] Design art. Artists and culture and language. So it's been quite a powerful, a powerful platform. And, um, I've also been able to continue my work around community development, through business, around the neuron and indigenous entrepreneur program. Um, and I have a business kind of the Canberra business yarning circle, which is a community consultation vehicle that I use to, uh, connect with Aboriginal entrepreneurs to see what we can do to help them with respect to their. [00:03:27] Business journeys and aspirations through the program. And, uh, yeah, I'm an ACT Australian of the year back in 2018, uh, because of the work that I've done through Darkies and since establishing Darkies, I've established for other businesses. So I've got a cleaning company called jingling. I've got two, it companies one's called Yerra and one's called Indignation. [00:03:49] That's all about change management and automation and AI, uh, um, and, uh, What else do I have? Um, I started, I've developed a business for my daughter called Tia, and she's was 11 at the time. She's 18 now. So that's another kind of Australian, um, contemporary online shopping store that has kind of, uh, Australian products, but with an indigenous twist. [00:04:14] Um, so she's an upcoming, uh, key pronounced. They call them these days and I think that's about it. Yeah. Yeah, but anyway,  [00:04:21] Germaine: [00:04:21] wow, many that, that you, you, um, sort of struggled to even remember them. How do you, I assume you're not sort of actively involved with every single one day in day out, is it, is it, um, more now a matter of sort of putting the right people in place and then managing it from a, from a higher level? [00:04:41] Dion: [00:04:41] That's exactly right. So I do probably do bits and pieces on each. Um, of the businesses every day, some more than others I'm heavily invested in because the darkies is so well established, it kind of just runs itself. So, um, I'm obviously still the, the fittest of it. I do all the invoicing, um, the creative kind of force behind it and, and people know me more, I think because of darkies that, like I said, that kind of discipline. [00:05:05] So that's what you want to do, want to create something, employ people to then come in and. Do it take a step back and work on the business, not in the business. Um, not everybody wants to do to do that, but because I'm perhaps a different interests, that's what I've chosen to do. I think it's a good thing to do. [00:05:19] Obviously you have to, you know, build and develop your business to a point where you can, you're able to do that. It's  [00:05:25] Germaine: [00:05:25] all about raising up, uh, a person or even, you know, raising up and training a pet or something where, where you just want it. You can get it to a stage where it can be self-sufficient. It knows where to find food and, you know, um, in the case of a child, more than just find food, but, you know, get into the, get into the world. [00:05:42] Um, but you do want to, you can't just give birth to a teenager. You sort of have to take it through that January business is that is the same thing. You can't just create a business tomorrow and go, okay. Um, I want to work on the business, not in the business. I'm going to remove myself from it and watch it take off. [00:05:58] That's not just going to happen. How many people do you have sort of  [00:06:02] Dion: [00:06:02] working  [00:06:02] Germaine: [00:06:02] for you and with you? Across the businesses. If you don't mind me  [00:06:06] Dion: [00:06:06] asking, I engage. A lot of it depends on which one. So I engage other people to do different things. I employ someone full-time through darkies, um, uh, and have a few employees through two different. [00:06:21] Um, the other different businesses are cleaning our business. Obviously there's lots of employees cause you know, there's lots of cleaners, um, lots of different buildings and doing lots of working on different, lots of different projects. So it's a bit of mix and match. So can go from having one or two employees to having. [00:06:37] Quite quite a few. So it depends on the industry and the demand and the resources and the capability of the business and the cashflow and all that sort of stuff as well. So, um, yeah, so  [00:06:48] Germaine: [00:06:48] it varies a little bit. Yeah, it sounds like you've, um, it sounds like the businesses are fairly low. Um, I guess. Not very cash cash heavy. [00:07:00] Not that there aren't a lot of, sort of, you guys have offices for every single business  [00:07:07] Dion: [00:07:07] for a long time. I just worked from home, but I, uh, um, you know, it has its ups and downs, but I. Conduct was quite lightly, especially, um, when I was first starting out because it was another lot of Aboriginal people in business at the time. [00:07:21] So I remember going back a decade ago, it was before the development and implementation of the indigenous procurement policy. Did the government brought in like five years ago? Um, since then, I think a lot of them, a lot more Aboriginal people are now participating in business and becoming business owners because there's more opportunity. [00:07:40] Whereas when I was doing it and I was kind of, not really many around they were, but

On this episode of the podcast, we chat with the founder of Redboat animation studios and Brivvio, Adrian King. Adrian is a veteran of the animation industry who started his first business nearly 20 years ago after he became disenfranchised with not receiving the full fruits of his labour. His flagship company, Redboat, primarily works with government agencies and large businesses to create video content that helps explain complex concepts to the general public. Almost three years ago, however, Adrian noticed that many of his customers wanted simple brand elements in their videos and had to go to large animations studios to do so. After identifying this market gap, he began working on creating an iPhone application (Brivvio) that could help users, without technical experience, to create branded videos that looked professional.   Whilst discussing his professional journey, Adrian addresses the lack of security many business owners face compared to regular employees and how this is the price people must pay to ‘be their own boss’.Additionally, Adrian touches on the differences between starting his first small business versus starting his new and much more ambitious venture. Specifically, he discusses how founding Brivvio has required him to seek out capital from outside investors and guidance from the various accelerator programs in order to scale the business up rapidly. With this being said, one through-line Adrian has ensured all his businesses have is being purpose-driven. Throughout the episode, he highlights how his commitment to running purpose-led companies has helped him weed out bad clients, communicate authenticity to prospective customers, and ultimately achieve long-term viability.  What we talk about Sacrificing stability in order to be your own boss Running a startup vs a small business The importance of being purpose-led   Links from this episode https://www.redboat.com.au/ (Redbot’s website) https://www.brivvio.com/ (Brivvio’s website) https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianking/ (Adrian on LinkedIn) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram)   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   [00:00:52] Germaine: [00:00:52] Hello, Future Tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. On this episode, I've got Adrian King from two different businesses. Actually tell us a little bit about what you do, Adrian.  [00:01:56] Adrian: [00:01:56] Hey, Germaine. Uh, yeah, look, uh, I've got two businesses, which is, seems like a crazy thing to do, but, uh, you know, one, one of them is very new and one of them's I've been there for about 20 plus years and you know, the one I've been. [00:02:06] Doing for most of my career has been animation and video production, more focused on the animation. And, uh, it's kind of led to the, the new business, which is really, really exciting. So the first one's called bread boats, which is the animation business, and we do a lot of animation for government, for technology, for science explaining tricky, complicated subject matter. [00:02:27] Sometimes very, uh, abstract ideas or complex ideas and distilling them down into really condense, smart, concise messages that can be transmitted to huge audiences in an animated format. And so I've had this career 20 plus years in video. And animation production. And what happened was it led to this new business because I had a client come to me and say, Hey, can you put all this sort of animated intro bottle onto our videos for us? [00:02:57] And we're going to make 30 videos every single week. And they're just a single shot of about 90 seconds. And we animated logo at the beginning and a call to action at the end and some branding on them. And I thought to myself, wow. That's really great bread and butter. I'm just going to make a killing out of doing this is great. [00:03:15] Just like, but then it's going to be really boring, right? Somebody is going to be sitting down, it's working. I'm going to have one of my team members working on this stuff all week, punching out the stuff, and it's going to be how I've got to be able to automate this. Right. It's got to be something that I can find a way to make this simpler and faster. [00:03:31] And that set me off on this path, which has now become revealed, which is a separate business. And, and that's, uh, the one that I'm kind of working pretty hard to promote at the moment, too.  [00:03:41] Germaine: [00:03:41] Yeah, right. So red boat is a bit more of an established, um, business. And then you've got Brivvio how old is Brivvio? [00:03:48] Adrian: [00:03:48] About a year and a half, but we only really released, uh, on the app store in February, on Valentine's day, this year.  [00:03:56] Germaine: [00:03:56] So Breo is, uh, an iPhone or an iOS app at the moment. Isn't it?  [00:04:00] Adrian: [00:04:00] Yeah. So Brivvio is an app and a, uh, it's kind of growing into a bit more of a platform, but at the moment you, you you'd download the app on the iPhone. [00:04:08] And what it does is it enables anyone with zero training, zero skills. There are no how or anything like that. Pretty much anyone can do it to create branded and captioned videos really, really fast and really easily. So. Puts your tops and tail was you with your branding on it and add captions across the bottom. [00:04:29] Germaine: [00:04:29] And then where does the footage come from? Is that, can you shoot, just shoot that on your iPhone? Or can you bring in different bits and pieces of footage or  [00:04:37] Adrian: [00:04:37] a mix? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you can film within Brivvio so you can film a single shot. Let's say you want to do a 62nd or two minute video on your phone. [00:04:47] You film it in Brivvio or you can import a video that you've created elsewhere.  [00:04:51] Germaine: [00:04:51] Right. And we were sort of really jumping into the, to the meat of the episode already. But tell me a bit about how you, like, did you get a team together to build the app? I know maybe the craziest sort of dropped off a little bit now, but, um, a few years ago everyone wanted an app for everything and you know, there's different qualities of. [00:05:11] Apps like there's and there's different types of apps. There's apps that you can download from an iOS store, but then there's, what's essentially a web app that you just use through a window on your phone. Tell me a little bit about how you put it together and who you use.  [00:05:25] Adrian: [00:05:25] Yeah. Great question. Germane, because it was an Epic journey to get there. [00:05:28] Like we were really spent a year and a half developing this and I have no idea how hard that was going to be to, you know, to do the development. Bit of technical background in my skillset as one of the creative and stuff with the animation. But, um, yeah, certainly a journey and we tried several different technologies to make it work, including progressive web apps and, you know, Mo like multi-platform, but we ended up having to rebuild the technology from scratch in order to make it work, um, because, uh, it requires a lot of heavy video processing. [00:06:00] And so. Yeah. Some of, some of the initial attempts once a good, how it all started was I had this idea because this client said to me, we want to do this. I said, well, maybe I can automate this. And I had a bit of conversation with them. They said, yeah, that'd be great. If we could just kind of like upload the video and it just comes back to us. [00:06:15] That'd be great and thought, right, I'm going to make this systematized. And because I'm sure other people are going to want this. And so I built a prototype. I mocked it up. I did a little bit of basic. Prototyping, you know, actually the first thing I did was I built, I did the lean startup method. [00:06:33] Everybody's probably heard of the lean startup, if you haven't much definitely a book you should read. And so I did the lean stuff. I built a web form and I said, and it kind of mimicked the process of how to like field. So upload video here, putting your title, uh, uh, putting colors, choose a background and that kind of thing. [00:06:51] And it didn't really do anything. It just pretended to be the process of putting, and I showed a few people, I said, yeah, great. I can use this. And so that was kind of my first sort of validation. So then I've built a proper prototype and brought a developer on to help with that. And we built this very, very rough prototype and I realized, you know, I probably need to get some funding to develop this properly. [00:07:14] So. I started on that path. And I then met, uh, the Canberra innovation network and, uh, heard about the Griffin Accelerator. And so I applied to be to get on to that because they, they sort of mentor the people that get, uh, get into the accelerated program and then put a bit of funding into it. And. Uh, and I got in, we had to pitch it's a bit like shark tank except friendly. [00:07:38] And this is like 20 investors and mentors there. And I had to pitch for five minutes in front of them, answer all their questions and go, that was nerve wracking, but really worthwhile. And then I got in and so I spent like three to four months in an intensive incubator space or accelerator program. [00:07:55] Validating. The, this was a viable product and building the first expanding on the first prototype.  [00:08:02] Germaine: [00:08:02] Yeah. Right, right. Wow. Let, let's rewind a little bit. Um, give me an idea of first of all, cause I've got a bunch of questions that I've just noted down. Um, but the, the first one is. How, how old are you if you don't mind me asking you've had a business for 20 years. [00:08:17] So I would assume you

With the holiday season fast approaching, we thought it would be a good idea to once again record a gift buying guide for our listeners. Unlike last year’s instalment, however, this episode will focus much more on functional products that will help our community achieve their personal and professional goals. Throughout this episode, our hosts touch on the best hardware and software money can buy, as well as some other tips you can use to find some great deals this holiday season.    Hardware recommendations: Computer components Second hand 1080ti  https://www.ebay.com.au/b/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1080-Ti-NVIDIA-Computer-Graphics-Video-Cards/27386/bn_7116470191 Laptops Laptops with Ryzen 4800h processor Lenovo Legion 5 - https://futr.link/legion-5 Hp Omen -  https://futr.link/hp-omen ASUS TUF - https://futr.link/asus-TUF Apple’s M1 chip Apple MacBook Air M1 - https://futr.link/macbook-air-m1 Apple MacBook Pro M1 - https://futr.link/macbook-pro-m1 Phones iPhone 11 - https://futr.link/iphone-11 Google Pixel - https://futr.link/pixel-4a Headphones Airpods - https://www.apple.com/au/airpods/  Galaxy Buds - https://futr.link/galaxy-buds Galaxy Buds+ - https://futr.link/galaxy-buds-plus Galaxy Buds Live - https://futr.link/galaxy-buds-live Sony 1000xm4 - https://futr.link/wh-1000xm4  Cameras and recording equipment  (Don’t know what links to put for these) Look at eBay for cheap studio equipment  Any Canon Camera that will fit a 50mm portrait lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 - https://futr.link/canon-50mm Sony RX100 series - https://futr.link/rx100vii HyperX Quadcast - https://futr.link/HyperX-QuadCast Logitech c922 webcam - https://futr.link/logitech-c922   Software/Sites: Team organisation tools /Workflow management systems  Plutio - https://www.plutio.com/ Google Workspace - https://workspace.google.com.au  Asana - https://asana.com/ Graphic design and editing suites Adobe Creative Cloud - https://www.adobe.com/au/creativecloud.html Crello - https://futr.link/crello Final Cut Pro - https://www.apple.com/au/final-cut-pro/   Website development Local by Flywheel - https://localwp.com/  WordPress - https://wordpress.org/  Shopify - https://www.shopify.com.au/ Squarespace - https://www.squarespace.com/  Email marketing software Mailchimp - https://mailchimp.com/  Mailpoet (WordPress plugin) - https://www.mailpoet.com/   Royalty-free music/image providers Our favourite free stock photo sites: https://futuretheory.com.au/4-best-free-stock-photo-sites/ Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/  Online portfolios Behance - https://www.behance.net/  Dribble - https://dribbble.com/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, Future Tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. On this episode, we've got the second episode of this season, featuring a Futureheory. Staff members. So this time around it's Hayden, who is our podcast manager, and he's going to be editing this podcast this episode right afterwards. But how are you today? [00:01:08] Hayden: [00:01:08] Yeah, not too bad. Germaine. How are you doing  [00:01:10] Germaine: [00:01:10] good. Thanks. He used to feature a lot more, um, on the broadcast. Yeah. Thanks. Hopefully I haven't  [00:01:16] Hayden: [00:01:16] lost my touch.  [00:01:17] Germaine: [00:01:17] Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully you haven't lost your podcast persona.  [00:01:22] Hayden: [00:01:22] I listened to enough of them. I'm sure that I can get  [00:01:24] Germaine: [00:01:24] it back  [00:01:25] Hayden: [00:01:25] the rest off and I'll be, I'll  [00:01:27] Germaine: [00:01:27] be here. [00:01:27] Be good to go. Um, yeah, this, this episode is a bit of a different one from what you're used to. Um, we wanted to that the team had a chat and we wanted to come up with an episode that was a bit of a buyer's guide so that if you're buying. Something for the, for the festive season, for Christmas, for someone special or for yourself, you had something to go off, but then as an extension as well, we wanted to have an episode that would give you ideas around software tools, recommendations that you can use. [00:01:56] Um, no matter what sort of. Project you're working on. So, you know, whether it's the new year's resolution that you want to start your own podcast, um, or whether it's in new year's resolution that you want to start a side business or go go full time into your business. We hope that this episode essentially is it's just sort of cast a wide net and suggest things that are based off our experience based off using, using a lot of these tools, all of these tools, these are the things that we can vouch for ourselves and stand behind that, you know, You should go out there, buy these, buy these for like, I was just having a chat with some of the team earlier today that I think for a long time and you went there hadn't you hadn't got, gotten to work yet, but for a long time, and even now we, we sort of buy people, physical objects for, for Christmas or as gifts. [00:02:43] And I know games are technically software, but I feel like surely sooner, rather than later, people should start buying. They loved ones, software, like, you know what, why aren't we buying? Like I know it's not as cool, but why aren't you buying like a 12 month subscription to an accounting package for, you know, someone, someone who's really always thought about going into business, but had no idea because there's such a  [00:03:05] Hayden: [00:03:05] stigma around it. [00:03:06] I think like giving the physical gift is still what. Do you  [00:03:09] Germaine: [00:03:09] do at Christmas time?  [00:03:11] Hayden: [00:03:11] Yeah, because I mean, if you unwrapped like a card that says, you've just like got 12 months of like an Adobe creative suite subscription, I'd be like, wow, awesome.  [00:03:23] Germaine: [00:03:23] Maybe, maybe you're not enough of a nerd or a geek because I'd be so ecstatic if I got that. [00:03:28] Yeah.  [00:03:30] Hayden: [00:03:30] That is true. Yeah,  [00:03:31] Germaine: [00:03:31] it might be. I mean, saying that like, even in, even in sort of that more, I don't know how, how do you classify those people who would appreciate it? I don't know how to classify it. I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't want to put a label  [00:03:43] Hayden: [00:03:43] notice such a yeah. nerd is such an all encompassing term. [00:03:47] I feel like, Oh, there's like a marketing jargan and term for it. Like the early adopters. I feel like those are the people that really speaks to.  [00:03:54] Germaine: [00:03:54] Yeah. Good. I don't think software still is an acceptable present or an acceptable gift. I've never gifted software hard and about you.  [00:04:04] Hayden: [00:04:04] Uh, I've never done it either. [00:04:05] I've gifted games. And as you said, that's technically software, but I think a lot of these companies need to do a better job of making their software a bit more tangible.  [00:04:14] Germaine: [00:04:14] To be honest. Yeah. I mean, I find it weird when you can buy like a Google play. Like it's effectively a gift card, but you can buy like the Spotify subscription or the Google play subscription from, from your local supermarket. [00:04:26] I always see it. And I always think that's, that's so weird. Like we're buying a physical thing for something that is completely digital, completely intangible, but, um, Yeah, you would think that marketers would have sort of come up, come up with a solution for this? Um, much sooner, like, I don't know. I don't know if you can buy like a, even if you could buy like a 3d fortify logo with a coupon  [00:04:48] Hayden: [00:04:48] or just like, um, the same sort of, uh, Technology that they use in like contact lists, like Cod  [00:04:54] Germaine: [00:04:54] payments and stuff like that. [00:04:56] Hayden: [00:04:56] Yeah. That's the word I was looking for. The things that they put in like a may bows and stuff that you could just tap it and, you know, you're free up your subscription for six months. If you tap it to your phone or something, that would be interesting. We've given up, we've given up the good ideas,  [00:05:09] Germaine: [00:05:09] but that's the whole point of the podcast, right? [00:05:11] We always want to give it, give away ideas for free and. That's the whole point. Um, we've digressed a little bit, but before we roll into the actual crux of this, this episode, I should mention, I'm actually recording this episode on the new Mac book pro with the M one processor and Hayden's, um, on his end, um, basically where I'm normally quoting from. [00:05:31] So he's using a CNI 22 Logitech webcam and a hyper, um, HyperX quad cost microphone. Yeah, I was originally going to go with, so I'm going with a webcam from the Mac book, just to see how that looks. Um, we were going to use the microphone from the Mac book, but Hayden on his sensitive was a very echo-y. So I'm just using the Logitech G pro headset and the in-built microphone. [00:05:55] So this can be a bit of a test for that one. I'm actually interested to see though, is what the processing here does. Cause we, this Mac book prior, and one we actually replaced, or this is replacing an Intel MacBook pro the, basically what happened was that the Intel MacBook pro was just overheating a lot and it was quite disappointing, um, especially made zoom calls and this is supposed to run much cooler. [00:06:21] So. We'll talk about it more in, in sort of the middle, middle section of the, um, uh, episode, but just wanted to give that as a heads up. So if you want to check out the video for this episode, go to our YouTube channel link will be in the description. You'll see a comparison of quality. Um, I don't know if you were seeing this on your end, Hayden, but there's a lot of background flickering. [00:06:42] Yeah.  [00:06:43] Hayden: [00:06:43] I was going to br

On this episode of the podcast, we chat with the co-founder of Base Soaps, Lianne Brink. Lianne and her life partner Mick started their company almost four years ago as a “passion project”, with the hope it would eventually generate some additional household income. The couple had no idea that in just a few years their small family business would evolve into one of Canberra’s most successful social enterprises.    As Lianne highlights throughout the episode, the rapid success of Base Soaps is largely attributed to how well her business acumen complimented her partner’s product knowledge and people skills. Naturally, a great deal of this episode touches on what it is like starting and operating a company with your spouse, and the unique problems attached to such an arrangement. Additionally, Lianna discusses how she was able to get Base Soaps products into the hands of suppliers despite having an extremely limited budget and no industry connections. As the episode concludes, Lianne touches on the importance of social enterprises and how important the assistance of organisations such as Mill House Ventures was to the growth of her business.    What we talk about How to break into the market, get your products into the hands of suppliers, and conduct market research Running a business with your spouse What it means to be a socially responsible company   Links from this episode https://www.basesoaps.com.au/ (Base Soaps Website) https://www.facebook.com/basesoaps/  (Base Soaps on Facebook) https://www.instagram.com/basesoaps/ (Base Soaps on Instagram)  Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to another episode on this one. We have Lianne from Base Soaps. Tell me a bit, a bit, a bit about what you guys do, uh, Lianne.  [00:00:59] Lianne: [00:00:59] Sure. Um, thank you very much for having me on the podcast. So in my, um, company, um, is called Base Soaps, which I, um, run together with my, uh, my life and business. [00:01:12] and we produce and sell art sites, shampoo, bars, conditioned bars, and also liquid sites and, um, shaving sites and yeah. Base Soaps as a social enterprise, we started, we started this in early 2017, as they, as we felt. Very excited to, um, about the idea of starting a family business, um, kind of, uh, on the side business at the time and make heads been, um, had made so a few years earlier as, as a Christmas present for his brother. [00:01:47] And so he had kind of had looked into it and knew how to do it. So, yeah, we decided that would be a good, a good idea for, for a small business and, and just started from there.  [00:01:57] Germaine: [00:01:57] Why soaps? Um, I, when I think about soaps, I think of, you know, it's in sort of the fast moving consumer goods. Section of the market. [00:02:06] And from what I understand about soaps, um, just like a lot of commodity products, you really need to be selling at mass to make any sort of actual money and have a business, um, around it. You know, um, Unilever for example, is a company that comes to mind when I think about soaps. Why, why did you guys think, you know, you want to get into, into that, that sort of game? [00:02:29] Lianne: [00:02:29] Well, at the time we really were in a, like a, the, the big business mind space at all. We just wanted something that would enable us to start a business that would also enable us to start quiet on small scale, because we, we had a little baby and we had a mortgage, so we didn't want the, we were risk adverse, I guess. [00:02:48] And. Yeah, because, um, so it makes a chemist by trade. So he first started making, you don't have to be, but it does come in handy, you know, with better how things react the way they doing things like that. So we felt like that was for us a good way to start and, and you're right. I think it does. It you'd have to. [00:03:07] Her. So it almost to make it like the big money, but you know, businesses come in all sizes and for us, this was just a good, a good way to start and yeah.  [00:03:17] Germaine: [00:03:17] Sort of get your foot in, even sort of start playing around with the idea of having your own business, I guess, in a way that, um, is not going to be too soon, but sort of starting off with something. [00:03:29] So now I get what you mean. It's I guess business doesn't always have to be about making money or making huge. Huge profits. It can, it can be about, you know, making some decent money and having something that you can do on the side. Um, you mentioned when you got started in 2017, that this, it was more of a side hustle, is that fair to say? [00:03:49] Lianne: [00:03:49] Yes, because it was so small and it takes. Um, a few years, you usually with a small business to make any profits, we were, we had other jobs and we would, um, yeah, as an extra thing with the stock.  [00:04:02] Germaine: [00:04:02] So were you sort of working for, were both of you working full-time and then doing this after hours to start off with, or? [00:04:09] Lianne: [00:04:09] Um, so I was working part-time as well. I'm working part time. So yeah, it gives us a bit more space to do this as well.  [00:04:18] Germaine: [00:04:18] Yeah. Yeah, because I could imagine that there would have been a lot of experimentation at the start, let alone thinking about the whole marketing side of things, but you would have had to experiment with, um, compositions and, you know, flavors. [00:04:31] So the lack of a better word, sort of the, the different options. How did you make those decisions initially? Did you just sort of go with one. Skew or did you have, did you just open up with a whole bunch of options for customers  [00:04:46] Lianne: [00:04:46] right. From the start I had in my mind that I wanted it to be a very kind of a simple and plain Brent, it not too many options. [00:04:53] So we started with three and I remember that the one that we really wanted to start with the lemon Myrtle. And, uh, because I think a lot of people really liked that and it's always been one of our most popular products. So that was fun. That was. Donald, we were, we were doing that one and the other two, I can't quite remember, but I think we just played around and get some feedback. [00:05:15] When we started, we had one store in our hometown that we knew was interested in selling it. So we would have got feedback from them and, you know, thought about what we wanted to make. And yeah, it just went from there and it very quickly though, already banded out through, I think. Six spots. Six different sense. [00:05:36] So, because we were like, thinking, this is my spot too, and this is a nice one too. So we didn't keep it as simple as I had in my mind. But you know, you want to cater for everyone. Yeah. And we started quickly using different types of exposure and dispel. We use like Walnut shell and marketing and Michelle and. [00:05:54] So they're all quite different times, so,  [00:05:57] Germaine: [00:05:57] yeah. Yeah. Well, so you mentioned that, uh, your hometowns Bungendore so still Canberra region, but is the business based out of Bungendore then?  [00:06:06] Lianne: [00:06:06] Um, so yeah, our business is still at, uh, at our home and that is in Bungendore. We do have, um, a lot to do in Queanbeyan as well. [00:06:15] We have the storage there. And yeah, most of it is starting in Queanbeyan and Canberra.  [00:06:22] Germaine: [00:06:22] How's that been? So you still produce it out of Bungendore you then take it in and you, you don't have your own store. You just have a retailers who sell the product, correct? That's  [00:06:33] Lianne: [00:06:33] right. Yeah. We have an online store only. [00:06:35] And the rest it's or, um, other stores and it used to be markets as well. Not so much these days.  [00:06:40] Germaine: [00:06:40] Yeah. Give us an idea of, um, so when you mentioned you, you guys started in 2017, um, how old were the both of you just to give us an idea of, you know, the stage of life you are in, if you don't mind me asking. [00:06:56] Lianne: [00:06:56] I was 32, Mick was 35. And we, so we had, um, uh, my oldest daughter, she was born in 2015. So we had a baby that was over one year. And that's, I guess after that one year we kinda felt like we were. Starting to get back to normal again, getting out of that, that baby, um, came alive. Like we had a little bit more space, um, to start doing this. [00:07:25] Germaine: [00:07:25] Yeah. I mentioned was a, is a chemist. So he, he brings. That skill. What did you feel like you brought in sort of initially or what, what, what did you handle? How did you, I guess what I'm trying to understand is how you can balance this out, sort of working with a partner. Um, you know, you mentioned you put it really nicely. [00:07:44] He he's your business and life partner, but. I'm sure that that adds a level of challenge because you've got to put up with each other and you know, you don't want to bring, you don't want to bring fights at home into work, but you don't have the options, especially when you're, when you're working and operating the business out of your, out of your home or close to home. [00:08:05] What did you bring into this? And, um, how do you handle that dynamic?  [00:08:09] Lianne: [00:08:09] So my background is a business. I've got a business degree, so that fit very well together. It was still a big learning curve. I'm originally from the Netherlands. So I think that'd be different, I suppose. But yeah, I did have the skills and, um, yeah, working together. [00:08:26] I mean, it's, I guess it has evol

On this episode of the podcast, we had the pleasure of chatting with Tahlia Cooper, a local fashionista and entrepreneur who founded the wildly successful Jaeke collection in 2017.    Despite her initial reservations about starting a fashion label with no previous industry experience, it took Tahlia less than a year after starting her company to get her pieces into the hands of some of Australia’s biggest socialites and on the red carpet of the 2018 ARIA awards. Throughout the episode, Tahlia talks about how she overcame the steep learning curve associated with starting an online retail business and some of the critical mistakes she made along the way. She also highlights how the digital marketing skills she developed when starting the Jaeke Collection helped her find lucrative job opportunities later in life. The show then concludes with Tahlia discussing the importance of entrepreneurial groups centred around empowering women, as well as the future of her boutique.   What we talk about Differentiation in the crowded fashion industry The learning curve associated with starting an online business from scratch Leveraging the skills you develop when starting a business into future job opportunities Female-led entrepreneurial groups    Links from this episode https://jaeke-collection.com/ (TJC Website) https://www.instagram.com/jaeke.collection/ (TJC on Instagram) https://www.facebook.com/jaeke.collection/ (TJC on Facebook) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. On this episode, I've got Tahlia Cooper from Jaeke collective. Did I get that right? Or collections? All right.  [00:00:59] Tahlia: [00:00:59] You did you did it is Jaeke. Jaeke? . Kind of like, cause you [00:01:09] look like my middle name's Jae. So it's spelled J a e it's yeah, it's a little bit different to, you know, classic J a Y. but when I started the business, because it's a Parisian themed boutique, I kind of wanted something that sounded a little bit, you know, unique, and also a little bit more premium. [00:01:27] And I guess Jaeke kind of just like came into the mix. So that's yeah.  [00:01:35] Germaine: [00:01:35] Yeah. I mean, you've got to, I guess it goes to show, you got to think a little bit more about your name than just sort of coming up with something it's got to like, like you've touched on, it's got to have that sort of Persian sort of European flavor to  [00:01:50] Tahlia: [00:01:50] it. [00:01:52] Germaine: [00:01:52] Hey, I mean, that's all part of sort of the vibe that you're going for and not bougie, but the sort of premium, aesthetic. We, we sort of jumped right into it on, on this episode so far, but give me an idea of, what you guys do first for those who don't  [00:02:08] Tahlia: [00:02:08] know. Yeah. Yeah. So basically we are an Australian online boutique. [00:02:12]we specialize in both men's and women's fashion and. Essentially the collection is sort of tailored around what I touched on earlier. Australian and Parisien is Parisian fashion trends. and I'd like to think that we're quite affordable and we're quite unique in market at the moment as well.  [00:02:31] Germaine: [00:02:31] Okay. [00:02:31] And, when did you start the business?  [00:02:33] So I started this a little over two and a half years ago. Now I was working in hospitality at the time. I had a budding career in hotel management and I was thinking to myself, you know, do I really want to be in hospitality for the rest of my life? No offense. I love everyone in hospital, but I just felt really uninspired. [00:02:53] And I thought, you know, I've done. I had a degree in entrepreneurial management. I managed people for a living as well, so I figured, you know, why not fuse those two together and come up with something creative that I can call my own. And it was kind of like, I try to think back about like when, when it started or why I did it. [00:03:11] And it was one of those things that just sort of. Jumped out of nowhere, I guess I kind of went home and started doing all this research. And, you know, if I look back on what my first website looked like, Oh my God, that thing was horrendous. And pretty sure it has like type of background, but, you know, we all start somewhere and yeah, I couldn't think of that, that I was just really uninspired and it just, just started the business out of nowhere. [00:03:35] Yeah,  [00:03:36] right. I mean, it's, I guess it just goes to show sort of, I believe that businesses started out of an out of a need and a passion and not, not sort of, I know a lot of people who spend time trying to work out, you know, I want to start a business, what's the business going to be in. And then they do all this research. [00:03:51] And what you end up with, I believe is sort of, you get into business because you want to. You want to get into business? Not necessarily because your, you have a passion or you have some need that you see you're solving. I mean, you've mentioned you guys are sort of unique in the market. so I would assume that you felt like there was a need for, for that sort of solution or that sort of product. [00:04:12] And then just sort of  [00:04:13] Tahlia: [00:04:13] same time. I have a really unhealthy obsession with clothes. So I mean like most. Girls my age as well. and I think when I started it, one of the big things that I thought about was, you know, spending all this money, giving to other online retailers and I had this light bulb moment was like, you know, if I have my own business, I'll have my own clothes that I can access little. [00:04:38] Did I know there's so much more work that goes into running a business and then just having a couple of blows on the side. yeah, that's kind of what fueled a little bit of, the business journey and start and just not wanting to do the nine to five grind as well with big, big factor there too. [00:04:55] Germaine: [00:04:55] Yeah, especially in hospitality, I assume that can be very tiring, very on your fate and managing people in hospitality. It's a, it's sort of a wild ride. I, I, I was thinking about it, like in the restaurant or hospitality space, you don't really. Ever know what's going to happen. When you, when you open, you don't know how many customers are gonna have it, or know how many orders are you going to have? [00:05:14] You sort of, it's like every day you just take upon and just go, okay, we're going to open up and then just go where it takes us. There's no, there's no real predictability. At least in a lot of other businesses, you can book in appointments. You can book in meetings. You can book in work. Hospitality is nothing like that. [00:05:30] So I'm sure there's an element of when you. Got into your own thing of having a bit more control and arguably a little bit easier. Even you talked about, you know, girls.  [00:05:41]Tahlia: [00:05:41] so 25, almost 26 now, but when I thought a Jaeke, I would have been like 2017, maybe 22, 23, I think. Yeah. Okay.  [00:05:52] Germaine: [00:05:52] So you were in hospitality at the time. [00:05:54] So you would have had a degree under your belt, sort of finished that up and then gone into full-time work at that  [00:06:01] Tahlia: [00:06:01] stage. So, because I'm in the hospitality industry or in hotel management, I was working nights. So that meant that I could go to uni during the day. So I would always work full time and I would always go to uni during the day. [00:06:13]but once that finished, I didn't really. Have anything else to do? I was just working and I was like, well, got to, I've got to do something with my degree. And I have got all these skills. and I had a, you know, full French, schooling as well since kindergarten. So I was fluent in French, for 10 years and thought maybe I should do something with my French language and my business acumen and make something of it. [00:06:39] Germaine: [00:06:39] Yeah. And so you're based in Canberra or  [00:06:42] Tahlia: [00:06:42] I was when I initially first started the online store, but that's the beauty of being online. Right. I can take it anywhere. I still have a lot of stocks still down there, but I'm now currently in Sydney and this is purely have a lot more suppliers up here. It's easier to have those day to day interactions with them. [00:07:00] Germaine: [00:07:00] Yeah. Yeah. So let's go. I, I'm definitely gonna get into, sort of suppliers and how you made that happen, but let's go rewind a little bit. So you, you were in hospitality, you decide that you want to try this business. What, what was the next step for you? Did you. Quit. And then just start the business from, from day one or what was your approach there? [00:07:24]Tahlia: [00:07:24] well, I couldn't quit straight away. I mean, if there's one takeaway, you can't just quit your day job, you know, you still, unfortunately still, you still need that capital. We still need to be working. but I did go home and after every shift and I would sit there and I would just research because, you know, it's so hard to find suppliers nowadays. [00:07:43] And no one, it's not just a simple, quick Google search either. I really had to do some digging through my socials. And then there's of course, you know, things I'd never done before, like setting up a website or, you know, getting into digital ads and it was all a really self learning. Journey. so I did that for a while, but the next big step that I took, which is what led me to live in Sydney was I just applied for a social media manager role in Sydney, mind you, like

  On this episode of the podcast, we had a chance to chat with the founder of Send and Shred, Jo Clay. For those who don’t know, Send and Shred is an E-commerce business that allows companies to dispose of their sensitive documents in an environmentally friendly manner and ensure this waste does not end up in landfill. Naturally, this business idea was spurred on by Jo’s passion for sustainability, which she discusses throughout the episode alongside the trials and tribulations of starting a niche online business. More specifically, Jo discusses why she chose a lean business model for her company as well as the financial viability of the recycling industry.    In the time between recording and publishing this interview, Jo was elected as a member of parliament in the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly representing the Greens. In the later parts of the episode, she details the process behind running a political campaign and what she hopes to achieve during her tenure in parliament. Additionally, Jo provides her stance on the role government agencies have in supporting sustainable businesses.  What we talk about The recent ACT election Environmentally sustainable businesses  The financial advantages of starting an online company   Links from this episode https://www.facebook.com/joclayginninderra (Jo on Facebook) https://www.sendandshred.com.au/ (Send and Shred) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)

After a brief hiatus, the Future Tribe team is back with an all-new season of the show. We are excited to bring you some of our best interviews yet, as well as some other valuable content that will hopefully help you make your goals come true. To kick us off, Germaine sat down with Futuretheory’s new marketing coordinator, Kelsey Allen, to discuss Futuretheory’s recent rebrand and website launch. During the episode, our team members discuss what rebranding campaigns are meant to achieve and what the process looked like for us internally. This leads to a more general discussion about what constitutes branding, how to align your branding with your company’s market position, and how branding can affect business functions such as recruitment as well as sales.     What we talk about Brand personality Logo design Aligning brand elements with company values Join the community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/joinfuturetribe/ Links from this episode https://futuretheory.com.au/podcast/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website) Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, Future Tribe and welcome to season three of the podcast. you'll notice actually that there's a few things that have changed this season, a few things with the podcasts, with the podcast cover with the intro and things like that. So I'd really love to hear what you think about. These changes that we've made this season is a little bit different. [00:01:08] It'll feature all the usual conversations, but we'll also hear from three of our team members at feature theory, the team behind the podcast behind the Future Tribe podcast. if you didn't know, that's a good segue to get into our first guests this season on this episode. And that's Kelsey's our marketing communications coordinator. [00:01:28] And she's here to discuss, a few of the changes that I've mentioned above and a few of the changes that we're making at Futuretheory. How are you today, Kelsey?  [00:01:36] Kelsey: [00:01:36] I'm good. Thank you. How are you going to Germaine?  [00:01:38] Germaine: [00:01:38] Good. Good. it's a little bit funny because we're in two different rooms, recording, but it's the best way that we could think of Jamaica to happen. [00:01:47]tell us a little bit first about sort of your experience and then. Tell me a little bit about your experience of feature theory when you applied for the role of what two, three months ago.  [00:02:00] Kelsey: [00:02:00] Yeah. Gosh, it does. It feels like it's gone very quickly actually, but yeah, it's about that time now. [00:02:05]so yeah. my background in marketing, graduated from Monash with a bachelor of business in marketing, and I've worked at across a few different roles. In the past few years as I'm developing career, I'm one of those included being in London, which was an incredible experience, really loved that. [00:02:19]and that was at a pharmaceutical company, internal comms, and also, various marketing comms roles, just, developing different companies, outward facing personas, so yeah, when I I dunno, it's a bit of an interesting story of how I came to Canberra. Not sure if it's appropriate for right now, I can go into that a different time. [00:02:37]I found myself in Canberra during COVID and had some time to spare. So I was like, Oh, let's see what's out there. and this role popped up for Futuretheory as marketing coordinator for a couple of days a week. And I thought, wow, this looks great. It would be a fantastic way to continue to develop my career in a sort of local environment and everything. [00:02:54]supplied for the role came in, had an interview with humane. We are now.  [00:02:58] Germaine: [00:02:58] So yeah,  [00:03:01]Kelsey: [00:03:01] exactly. And yeah, it was just a, an opportunity to really take a bit of ownership in the company. and. help take a company somewhere as well. with the team of very clearly passionate people. So super excited to be here. [00:03:15] Germaine: [00:03:15] Yeah. Yeah. And, we should say in, you have been offered a full-time role, so you'll be coming on and around a lot more, you were with us part-time but you'll be around a lot more. Part of the reason why we hired you, was that we were looking for someone to look at Futuretheory, look at Future Tribe and look at everything that we're doing. [00:03:34] And I guess look at it from an external in point of view. cause what I found was thinking about the business, thinking about everyone involved was that everyone who was already involved. Had almost what's the saying, like where you can't, when you're, so like in the forest, you can't see the trees or something like that, or your, we were so lost in it that we didn't necessarily see everything from the outside in. [00:03:59] Did you, when you first saw Futuretheory and was exposed to the brand. What sort of first impressions did you get? What did you understand about what we do?  [00:04:09]Kelsey: [00:04:09] Yeah, that's an interesting question. Cause I think, part of the application process was, a bit of a practical application, where you asked. [00:04:16] Some notes on the website, for example. and I think from memory, I might've ripped into it a lot.  [00:04:22] Germaine: [00:04:22] Hey, that's what we liked. We were looking for someone with honesty. So  [00:04:26] Kelsey: [00:04:26] Exactly. yeah,  the website. Did what it needed to do to an extent, but I think I initially just saw a lot of opportunity for development. [00:04:34]and to take it a little bit further, specifically looking at the website, beyond that, I I think I had a, quite a generic understanding of what the business was. just in the context of the space that the work that you do is in, But then, I guess coming into the interview process, it was very clear, the passion and everything that you Damien the rest of the team have for what you do. [00:04:56] And I think for me, I saw a bit of a disconnect between the website and speaking to you in the interview and how they were presented so differently. So many, first impressions were that the website just wasn't doing the company justice. And there's a lot of opportunities to develop further on that. [00:05:11] Germaine: [00:05:11] Yeah. And that's something that we identified as well, is that, every organization that we work with, basically all our clients have build something. They work on something with them, they make it themselves, or they get someone to develop it a few years ago thing before they come to us. [00:05:26] And what we find is that, and ironically enough, we were in a similar position. What we found and what we find is that people just it just it's enough for a little while. So you just create that and you let it stay. And do you get stagnant, where in reality and organization, especially an organization that's thriving continues to change and continues to evolve, and it's important that our website and everything that you do represents that, For us, we'd when we built that website, it was not that long ago, but we were at sort of a point where we were starting to ramp up and things have changed a fair bit since then. [00:06:04]when we introduced the podcast presence on the website was very sort of ad hoc. I don't know if you felt like if it looked like it to you, but it looked like it was just like. Glued in just attached as this side thing. did you see things like that through the website and through your initial interaction before you came in? [00:06:25]Kelsey: [00:06:25] yeah, I suppose a little bit, Yeah. As I said, it just didn't feel like an overly cohesive yeah. Sort of website, that pulled together and communicated really effectively what you guys do and all the passion and everything. and I think, yeah, when it comes to the podcast as well, obviously that wasn't, as present, I think when you did the website, so checking that on afterwards, it's quite easy to fall into that trap of not considering it as. [00:06:49] Part of the overall website, and having it tacked on in that sense.  [00:06:53]Germaine: [00:06:53] yeah. And then when he joined, we had a logo, we had the bones of some sort of brand, but I think what we've done over the last, just the last few months is really start to flesh things out. and what we needed was this external person. [00:07:08] And I keep telling Kelsey, we want to get all this stuff done from. get, I guess Kelsey's output before she gets into the second mentality. Not that it's a bad mentality, you become part of it. And then you just don't see, or don't always see the bits and pieces that a completely independent third party might see. [00:07:27] So we just tried to over the last few months, what you will see is, and. Tomorrow or, on the Friday. So this episode will come out on a Thursday as usual. And on the Friday we'll be launching our new website. What you also see with that is that feature there is now got a new logo, a new website, and we've taken the time to really consider who we are, what we are and position ourselves and make sure that the whole website. [00:07:53] Is a true reflection of that. So if you want to, I guess I want to get into a little bit about rebranding because it's not, I think some people see it as a very like easy thing, where people just want to, they just want to start like current new logo. They just want it. They just want to do it. [00:08:11] And it's so easy, but let's get into a little bit about what should be considered, when you're looking at Creating a new logo, creating a new brand, or at least refreshing and replacing what you already had because there's some equity with any logo, especially if you're a functioning business. [00:08

On this episode of the podcast, we had a chance to chat with the founder of the CBR Gals, Rae Knopik. For those who don’t know, the CBR Gals is a not-for-profit organisation that focuses on helping females in Canberra connect and support one another through networking events. As Rae says in the episode, she started this initiative simply because she wanted it to exist. Being an American transplant, our guest knew all too well about how hard it is to find ways to connect with like-minded individuals in a way that isn’t forced or time-consuming. Despite realising this dream, however, our guest now faces a new set of challenges due to COVID-19. Thus Rae spends a great deal of the show discussing how she has adapted to running CBR Gals in this ‘new normal’, as well as the process behind running large scale events more generally. In this discussion, Rae highlights that authenticity, collaboration, and careful planning are the cornerstones of any successful event. Following this, the show then concludes (ironically we might add) with a discussion about how men being more closed off emotionally would make it difficult to create a group similar to the CBR Gals for males.    What we talk about The CBR Gals and what networks like it can offer The logistics of organising large scale events What does being a not-for-profit mean?   Links from this episode https://cbrgals.com/ (CBR Gals Website) https://www.facebook.com/cbrgals (CBR Gals of Facebook) https://www.instagram.com/cbrgals/(CBR Gals on Instagram) https://twitter.com/cbrgals (CBR Gals on Twitter) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors [00:00:00] Rae: [00:00:00] But we did not get the grant and we're about two weeks out. And $20,000 down, [00:00:10] Intro: [00:00:10] welcome to the Future Tribe podcast, where we're all about taking your future to the next level, whether it is interviewing guests or unpacking strategies, you know, we will be talking about getting things done and backing you a fellow optimistic, go get up. And now as always, here's your host, the formidable fortunate and highly favoured  [00:00:31] Germaine Muller. [00:00:34] Germaine: [00:00:34] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast on this week's episode, I've got Rae Knopik from CBR, gals or Canberra gals. Um, how are you today? Right.  [00:00:44] Rae: [00:00:44] Great. Thanks for having me.  [00:00:45] Germaine: [00:00:45] No worries. It's really good to have you. One of our first guests was Georgie from the women's collective. Um, and when I saw your name pop up and, and what you guys do, I sort of thought, ah, there's, there's some synergies [00:01:00] there. [00:01:00] I'm sure between. What the women's collective do or, or used to do. And then, um, what you guys do, um, tell me a bit, bit more about what you aim to do.  [00:01:09] Rae: [00:01:09] Great. Thank you. Um, the Cambra gals network is a feminist not-for-profit organization that focuses on enabling every Canberran woman to be more in her personal and professional capacities and to connect to the greater act area through inclusive events. [00:01:27] So long story, short events based, not for profit for women.  [00:01:30] Right. Okay. So, so very like completely events based or just majority events based or, um,  [00:01:37] we like to create events through social media and through, um, like in person face to face meetings.  [00:01:43] Germaine: [00:01:43] Right, right. How are you tackling COVID-19 and, um, everything that we're sort of facing at the moment there,  [00:01:51] Rae: [00:01:51] it's a great question. [00:01:52] And when lockdown started happening in Cambra, um, anyone who's in events, we kind of say, Oh gosh, you know, what are we going to do? [00:02:00] How are we going to survive? But this was a really meaningful time for us to be there for our network. And what that meant was. Creating creative, online events where people could still meet and connect in a meaningful way. [00:02:14] Um, but it got a bit tricky, right? Because zoom exhaustion and going to a happy hour is really different than having a glass of wine or a bevy with 40 other little tiles. So we decided to get creative with it. And every half hour that we've had virtually, we actually deliver a goodie bag full of local kind of nibbles and drinks from local women run great brands to their doors. [00:02:41] So we're all kind of eating the same things and drinking the same bubbles, um, to kind of create that atmosphere.  [00:02:48] Germaine: [00:02:48] Nice. Nice. So it's really been a time to experiment and innovate. One could say in how you deliver events now, are you sort of thinking when things go back to normal, I'm sure you can't replace like [00:03:00] in-person connections, especially when it comes to networking, but do you think there'll be an element of. [00:03:04] Virtual connections for, let's say Canberrans, who've gone overseas on a posting for three years. Or have you thought about that or is it still early days in terms of working out how you deliver in a postcode sort of scenario?  [00:03:17] Rae: [00:03:17] Well, I think here we're gals network, we really try to turn all feedback into quantitative metrics. [00:03:24] So, um, what our metrics have been finding from these events is that. People love the virtual events. And there are women in Canberra, you know, we're neighbors who wouldn't necessarily go to person happy hour, but are perfectly happy meeting online. So because of that reason that these virtual events actually add a level of inclusivity that we didn't. [00:03:48] Have previously, so they're here today, for sure.  [00:03:51] Germaine: [00:03:51] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you, you raise a good point because if you're a mother or, you know, had a pet or had some reason why you didn't, [00:04:00] you couldn't get out of the house, this, or just didn't have a car, let's say, um, this sort of breaks down those barriers because you can sort of hop on and I guess it also removes. [00:04:11] An aspect or an element of in our, how am I going to present myself? Do I have really nice clothes and jewelry, but you, you sort of remove that to an extent don't you, when you sort of have to meet virtually, because it's almost in the control of, I mean, right now you could just turn off your screen and. [00:04:27] That's it like there's, there's nothing that I can do here. So it almost gives the power back to the people attending rather than, rather than having those social pressures that might, might be felt.  [00:04:37] Rae: [00:04:37] And that's absolutely right. Jermaine. And in addition to that, we learned very recently that a lot of our, the people involved with this network don't drink. [00:04:45] And so a happy hour wouldn't necessarily early be something that's super interesting to them of interest. So in those kinds of goodie bags actually offer non alcoholic beverages and they feel like this is the best event for some people, they [00:05:00] feel this is great because it removes that kind of extra barrier as well. [00:05:04] So virtual events definitely here to stay. We're excited to get back into 'em face to face as well.  [00:05:10] Germaine: [00:05:10] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, that's not a very good point. Like I found myself especially coming right out of school where a lot of people enjoyed the drinking. Um, I didn't enjoy it so March and that left me a little bit isolated. [00:05:25] And then, you know, not in like a that they obviously don't mean it in that way, but if you don't partake in those activities, You know, to the, to the full extent that, how does my it, um, then, then it does isolate you in some way, shape or form whether it's intentional or not. So, um, yeah, it sounds like it's been an interesting time for you guys and you've sort of almost found a different offering, um, that can sit. [00:05:48] Sit alongside what you are used to do and what you'll do hopefully, um, moving forward. So when did you start this whole endeavor?  [00:05:57] Rae: [00:05:57] We'll be two in November of this [00:06:00] year.  [00:06:00] Germaine: [00:06:00] Okay. So about a year and a half, or get getting close to two years now, you don't have. And Australian accent. Um, don't mean to, I don't mean to single you out, but, but give me an idea of, um, how old you are now. [00:06:13] How old are you, how old you were when you, I mean, did you come to Canberra or did you just grow up in Cambra with an sort of an American sounding accent? I might be wrong. Tell me a little bit about yourself.  [00:06:25] Rae: [00:06:25] Thanks Jermaine. I am a Floridian, born and bred. After uni, I moved to Italy for two years, Florence to be specific. [00:06:34] I met my partner there and he's from Canberra. When he returned back to Canberra, he invited me to come and see where he lives and I did, and I never left. So that was two years ago in 2018. I had just turned 23, 25 now. And I've been here ever since.  [00:06:52] Germaine: [00:06:52] Yeah. Wow. Okay. So what made you start this whole thing? [00:06:57] Like being. Was it, was it sort of a [00:07:00] being new to Canberra? I need something like this. Why don't I start it myself sort of thing. Or  [00:07:06] Rae: [00:07:06] as you know, um, I always tell people that I never wanted to found this organization. I just wanted it to exist. And when I came here and if you've been in Canberra for a while, um, you'll see the changes that have happened to the city. [00:07:20] And it's amazing, remarkable. Even in the past two years, the social and infrastructure changes that are happening. It's amazi

On this episode of the Future Tribe Podcast, we had a chance to chat with Alanna Davis, who is the Community Development & Engagement Manager for Canberra’s Domestic Violence Crisis Service (DVCS). Alanna is currently on the hunt for Canberra’s 13 cutest pets so that they can be featured in the DVCS’ upcoming fundraising calendar. Naturally, we ask our guest about the logistics of running such an ambitious online campaign, what tools she uses, and what marketing channels the DVCS have used to promote it. On top of this, Alanna talks extensively about the challenges that arise when crafting communications strategies for a non-for-profit organisation who deals with such confronting social issues. The show then concludes with a very informative conversation regarding the statistics behind domestic abuse in Australia and the resources that are available to the victims of such crimes.    What we talk about What services the DVCS offers How to effectively manage online campaigns  The dynamics of marketing for a non-for-profit     Links from this episode https://dvcs.org.au/get-involed/events/ (Information on the 2021 DVCS Pet Calendar) https://dvcs.org.au/ (DVCS website) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)

In this episode of the Future Tribe Podcast, we had the pleasure of chatting with Ian Lindgren, an army veteran turned entrepreneur who currently owns and operates four companies here in Canberra. After suffering a career-ending injury during one of his deployments, Ian was forced to forge a different career path which eventually led him to create his first and most successful company, PayMe, Australia’s #1 payroll services provider.  As you can imagine, our guest has a bevy of knowledge regarding the steps behind starting a company and implementing a strong workplace culture. Additionally, Ian also shares how he and his wife are able to simultaneously manage staff across multiple locations who work in completely different industries. Later, Ian shares how he used many of the lessons learned during his time in the army to inform his business philosophy relating to areas such as competitor analysis and information gathering. The show concludes with our guest talking about the future of his businesses given COVID-19 as well as his commitment to using his success to help support the veteran community within Canberra.   What we talk about Overcoming adversity Developing a strong workplace culture across multiple businesses Competitor analysis and strategic agility Corporate social responsibility Links from this episode https://payme.com.au/ (PayMe website) https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-lindgren-b15a93/?originalSubdomain=au (Ian on LinkedIn) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website) Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors [00:00:00] Ian: [00:00:00] So I started PayMe at home with, with no clients. I think within the first six months we had a $600,000 turnover. The next year it was 9 million and then 15 million.  [00:00:11] Intro: [00:00:11] Welcome to the Future Tribe podcast, where we're all about taking your future to the next level, whether it is interviewing guests or unpacking strategies, you know, we will be talking about getting things done and backing you a fellow optimistic, go getter. [00:00:26] Ian: [00:00:26] And now as always. Here's your host, the formidable fortunate and highly favored Germaine Muller.  [00:00:35] Germaine: [00:00:35] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast on this week's episode, I've got Ian Lindgren from PayMe, uh, how are you today, Ian? No worries. Thanks for joining. Yeah, it's a, it's a bit of a cold cold morning, um, in Canberra. [00:00:53] Um, but it's nice to be talking to someone who can sympathize. Uh, with, with what I'm feeling,  [00:01:04] [00:01:04] [00:01:00] hopefully, and then it will get too hot, but that's camera for you. Um, tell me, tell me a bit about PayMe before we get started.  [00:01:11] Ian: [00:01:11] Oh, probably my Oregon pine mill is an accidental company. Uh, I don't really use it when I sit back and think about it. [00:01:20] It's a bit of a storage of it all yet. I had 20, uh, 21 odd years in the regular army. And then got injured and my last deployment to, um, Egypt and Israel, uh, area called the Sinai peninsula, which wherever I worked, I got injured in there. Nothing too bad physically, but it's effectively stopped me from working full time since the year 2000. [00:01:44] So it's a primer kind of came about, is that because I essentially had to work from home, uh, to do something I had to retire totally. Or do something. And, um, so I started, uh, PayMe at home with, with no clients. [00:02:00] Do you know about how to do or run a business? Uh, because I'd always been in the army. I think within the first six months we had $600,000 turn over the next, uh, year. [00:02:09] It was 9 million and then 15 million, um, thankfully corn grow that fast every year. Cause it would've given me a lot more growth, but yeah, it just boils down to some simple recipes and we've had a great time. I didn't stay inside a house and we've got a few offices around the country now. [00:02:31] What color contractors.  [00:02:32] Germaine: [00:02:32] Yeah. That's amazing. So looking at your website, you are Australia's largest contractor payroll company. Um, have you stayed within Australia or have you thought about going across the pond so to speak?  [00:02:46] Ian: [00:02:46] Uh, we have actually operated all over the world. Uh, certainly didn't, didn't, didn't, uh, uh, shy away from trying new business lines. [00:02:58] But what I found was [00:03:00] for very good reasons, the Australian unemployment and payroll market has a lot of regulation around it to protect people like you and me and, and, uh, Australia, those protections, they aren't there. And the rest of the world. So, for example, if I was speaking to an American company institution that someone needed to have maternity leave or, and that actually it was your responsibility. [00:03:27] If you suck, if you paid someone in Australia, if they ask for it, but they were entitled at these types of things, blew people away overseas. So in the end, I, uh, I didn't pursue that as mr. Lawrence, because the battles to convince people that when you operate in Australia, you've got to operate the way we operate too, like too, too large. [00:03:48] So they're having fun because there's no use working unless you're having fun.  [00:03:55] Germaine: [00:03:55] Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, I'm having fun. Cause I think [00:04:00] that that funding means that you're passionate about what you're doing or you're at the very least you're enjoying what you're doing, which I think everyone should, should, um, aim to do. [00:04:07] Cause that's when you, I think do your best work because if you're not really having fun or enjoying what you're doing, then there's probably something else that you should be doing that. Um,  [00:04:17] Ian: [00:04:17] and you can learn some, some huge lessons from that in business as your business grows, and people do business with people they trust. [00:04:27] Um, if you have trust. You have fun and you're really enjoy supporting each other.  [00:04:32] Germaine: [00:04:32] Yeah, definitely. And I think that that trust component is really important as well. I mean, you've been in business for a lot longer than I have, but, um, you, you do realize that it is all about trust. You can sign all the contracts and do all that fun stuff. [00:04:46] Um, but at the end of the day, if, if there's no trust in it, then, um, as I like to say, there's no point turning back to sheet of paper with some ink on it. Um, if, if. Everything was to fall apart because, because what's that going [00:05:00] to do at the end of the day?  [00:05:01] Ian: [00:05:01] Exactly. Exactly. And that affects the whole team, not just yourself, if you really have that kind of how you see that Cathy's, you've turned him at work. [00:05:11] Everyone feels the pressure, if something is.  [00:05:13] Germaine: [00:05:13] Yeah. Yeah. And it sort of makes you feel like, like, so feature theory. My business. We're a, we're a family business. Um, my brother's involved in it and, you know, we, we try and sort of spread that, that family feel. And I, I just find that. Having that sort of level of rapport as well. [00:05:32] It just means that you're a, you're a unit and you're working towards a common goal and you're helping your, you want to help your customers and your clients, and they become part of the family. And you know, when they're doing it tough, especially given COVID and everything else that we're sort of experiencing at the moment, working from home. [00:05:50] Um, it's I think just. It really important that you bring back those probably old school, um, or, or, you know, someone call them old school sort of business [00:06:00] values, but, um, It certainly stood out to me as important.  [00:06:04] Ian: [00:06:04] I think that is very true. Like your business, our business is a family business. Every single person in my family is in the business, including my daughter. [00:06:13] And it really truly is a family business across all four companies. Because it's a smaller company, a payroll company called just pies. And in order to protect ourselves and diversify, uh, w we have a car leasing company, uh, which is Pampers. I am in college and company, but otherwise just the marketing plug. [00:06:37] Um, but we also have a room. A recruitment company on a campus, all this recruitment companies go to effecting people, which we did quite a few years ago, but it just gives us the stability, the variety for the family members to, to operate in and make sure we've got some longevity.  [00:06:55] Germaine: [00:06:55] Yeah. That's because you, you run the, [00:07:00] the four businesses together with your wife. [00:07:02] Is that right?  [00:07:03] Ian: [00:07:03] That's right. Yeah, but Shane essentially for one of a better word and advice, and we have one external advisory. So that, to keep us honest, to ask what we're doing, we also, outside of that, we have good side of the same thing. That's I think very wise. So that done don't actually make errors. [00:07:27] Germaine: [00:07:27] Yeah, that's amazing. It sounds like a truly sort of family business. Now, when did you start all this? Was it in the early two thousands? Did you say?  [00:07:38] Ian: [00:07:38] Yeah, after I got injured, I had about a year resting on my back cause I couldn't move and then I tried to work again, but I just, I just couldn't. And uh, although I tried to consult back into defense. [00:07:52] It just wouldn't work. So I started this January, 2005 with just myself and this office, [00:08:00] actually that I'm sitting in right now. And that's where, that's where I figured that I'd stay for the

This episode’s guest is Eric Daams, the co-founder of Studio 164a (creators of the WP Charitable WordPress plugin), who talks about the niche industry of WordPress plugin development. After studying history and Spanish in university, Eric discovered he had a  profound interest in coding and eventually used this passion to create WP Charitable, WordPress’ top-rated donation plug-in. We start off our interview by asking our guest to discuss why he believes WordPress has continued to grow over the past decade and if he sees another platform overtaking it in the near future. Afterwards, Eric delves into his personal story and shares how difficult it was initially to develop a clientele base for his plugin. The show then concludes with our guest outlining the current health of WP Charitable as well as the marketing strategies he is currently implementing in order to further grow the plugin further.    What we talk about The advantages of WordPress and its future viability Developing a dedicated client base Moving from freelancing to starting your own company Marketing strategies suited to digital service providers   Links from this episode https://www.wpcharitable.com/ (WP Charitable’s website) https://au.linkedin.com/in/ericdaams (Eric on LinkedIn) https://twitter.com/ericnicolaas (Eric on Twitter) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors [00:00:00] Eric: [00:00:00] You know, and so you kind of come away feeling like you're a bit of a cheapskate, even though you say just donating, you're like you're actually giving your own money. And, um, but you still kind of coming away with this sort of unsatisfied,  [00:00:13] Intro: [00:00:13] Welcome to the future tribe podcast, where we're all about taking your future to the next level, whether it is interviewing guests or unpacking strategies, you know, we will be talking about getting things done and backing you a fellow optimistic, go getter. And now as always, here's your host, the formidable fortunate and highly favored Germaine Muller.  [00:00:37] Germaine: [00:00:37] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to this episode of the podcast. [00:00:41] And on this episode, we've got Eric Daams from WP Charitable. How are you, Eric?  [00:00:47] Eric: [00:00:47] I'm good. Thanks Germ,aine.  [00:00:48] Germaine: [00:00:48] Tell us a bit about WP Charitable and what you do.  [00:00:53] Eric: [00:00:53] Yeah. So WP Charitable, uh, well, charitable is a donation plugin. Yeah for WordPress [00:01:00] and it helps nonprofits and organizations, or even individuals accept donations on their website and they can do that themselves. [00:01:10] They can just install the plugin and start collecting donations. And so on WP charitable.com. We offer support and sort of maintenance. And we also sell a series of atoms that people can, can purchase to add additional fee. So the core plugin is free. Charitable itself is free, and then we have. Additional plugins that do extra things that depending on where you are in the world or what your needs are as an organization, you may, you may need those. [00:01:38] Germaine: [00:01:38] Yeah. What, what leads you to begin the business and how many, how many of you are, does it take to sort of run the plugin?  [00:01:49] Eric: [00:01:49] So. I it's going back a while. So, so my, my business partner and I stand in he's in his, in Bendigo I'm up here in Darwin [00:02:00] and we started developing a few products for the invited marketplaces. [00:02:05] So like theme, forest, and code Canyon, but the two main ones that we focused on and. One of our, well, our most successful one that we had on there ever was a WordPress theme, which was a crowd funding scene. And it was built around a plugin providing pride floating features, basically, which was actually used quite heavily by nonprofits as well. [00:02:28] Because, you know, it's a similar kind of concept essentially, and it basically provided that basic donation facility. And that, that did that did well. That was our most successful products on there, but the plugin that we built it around eventually. Was sold off to a different company than it originally created it. [00:02:47] And that company actually had a competing product, which they obviously prioritize. And this other one that we'd based our whole theme around gut based sort of cost aside and retired. [00:03:00] So we, we maintain support for that for, for quite a while, but that was kind of the point at which we. We saw the need for a good donation kind of tool for WordPress, particularly when we sort of really started looking, which was around mid 2014, there, there really wasn't that many good options. [00:03:20] Like there was a lot of options. We've had to take donations with PayPal, but then if you were wanting to use any other payment gateway or in your part of the world where you actually can't take PayPal, which. You know, not, not that many places in the world, but there's some pretty significant regions of the world where that is the case. [00:03:39] You, you know, that there wasn't actually that many options and plus the. In terms of what was available, sort of outside of the WordPress world and in sort of more like hosted platforms for nonprofits, there was like a lot the platforms basically, which offered a whole lot of it, additional features and stuff that you really just [00:04:00] couldn't do with WordPress, not that easily. [00:04:02] And so that was, that was our focus from the start is kind of actually. Create something that, that kind of provided a bit of an alternative there with a very different Cox cost structure, both for us and for the nonprofit, which actually makes it much cheaper for them in the long run  [00:04:19] Germaine: [00:04:19] once, once and utilized,  [00:04:20] Eric: [00:04:20] I guess. [00:04:21] Yeah. I mean, it doesn't even take that long. It really, it comes down to how many days you accept, you know, if you, if you, maybe if you get, if you're collecting less than. You know, a thousand dollars of donations or 2000 nodes of donations a year, then maybe a hosted platform  [00:04:37] Germaine: [00:04:37] is good.  [00:04:37] Eric: [00:04:37] But once you, once you start getting much more than that, and if you're on a platform which like most of them charges you on each step donation, like a small transaction fee, then, then that really quickly adds up. [00:04:51] Germaine: [00:04:51] Yeah. Yeah. So put us, put us on a timeline. You mentioned 2014, but when did you originally develop the [00:05:00] theme or were you always sort of developing for code Canyon and ThemeForest and for listeners who are not, not, not aware of ThemeForest and card Canyon, I've heard Kenyan space be a place where you can buy. [00:05:11] Plugins and theme forest is a place  [00:05:13] Eric: [00:05:13] for templates for  [00:05:14] Germaine: [00:05:14] WordPress. So you guys are very heavily invested in WordPress. I am a huge fan at Fugett theory, we use WordPress 99% of the time, unless someone has a specific request for, for a platform. But yeah, it is on a, on a timeline. So when, when was the crowdfunding theme first developed by you guys? [00:05:34] Eric: [00:05:34] That's a good question. Probably about. Probably that 20 2012, 2013. And wait and wait. So we'd had a few other products before that. I think we probably launched our first one may be around sorta early 2010. [00:05:52] Germaine: [00:05:52] Like at that point of launching products, we always like out of school, always  [00:05:58] Eric: [00:05:58] into sort  [00:05:59] Germaine: [00:05:59] of the [00:06:00] development side of things, or  [00:06:01] Eric: [00:06:01] I know in fact, out of a uni, I studied. History and Spanish. And then my brothers ran a travel Woodside, a tribal community. And I, I started working for them as sort of like a community manager or whatever. [00:06:19] And through doing that, then I sort of, I set up a couple of blogs and discovered that I was actually really interested in writing code. So I was teaching myself and, and, but they didn't really need somebody else. That was. At my level as, as a developer, I suppose. So. And, and so then I sort of slowly worked my way into working freelance, um, yeah. [00:06:44] As a developer. So I would take on at this point. Uh, so there's probably a mid twenties.  [00:06:51] Germaine: [00:06:51] How old are you now?  [00:06:52] Eric: [00:06:52] 25, 26. I don't think I asked you, maybe I am now 35. I guess 17 years ago. [00:07:00] Yeah. So this was about 10 years ago. Now. It must've been before. I must have been younger than that. Actually, it must've been more like 24. [00:07:05] So basically I started, I started freelancing as a developer, took on whatever I could find and just really worked hard on taking in initially fairly small projects to really build my knowledge in what I could do. And. I did really enjoy the, sort of the freedom of freelancing, but didn't really enjoy having a whole lot of deadlines from a whole lot of different clients. [00:07:30] So that was something that then as I experienced that, and the idea of building products was really appealing as a way of having passive income. But, but in the long run of actually having something where, you know, I could kind of sit the. Set the goals set, set the direction of, of what I'm building rather than having that in the client's hands. [00:07:54] And so, so that was for me how, how it kinda got into that. My business [00:08:00] partner now was he he's a designer. He was working for a printing company in, in Melbourne and. I would be the developer o

Boy does time fly when you’re having fun! This episode marks the one-year anniversary of the Future Tribe Podcast, which means a full year of sitting down with amazing self-starters and having them share their personal experiences/advice for your listening pleasure. Our team here is so proud of how far we have come over the past year and want to thank our audience for your continued support, it truly means the world to us.   To commemorate making it this far, our host (Germaine) and producer (Hayden) decided to sit down and chat about the podcasting industry as a whole and where they see it going in the future. In their discussion, the duo shares some lessons they have learnt about podcast production over the past year and give the audience a rundown on what it takes to produce an episode of the show. Afterwards, Hayden and Germaine touch on the benefits podcasts provide creators outside of mere financial return and whether the medium is an optimal advertising channel. The show then concludes with our two team members reminiscing about the show and highlighting what their favourite episodes are.   What we talk about The podcasting landscape What utility the medium provides to producers/advertisers Tips for starting your own show Our favourite memories from the show so far    Links from this episode https://futuretribe.podbean.com/e/the-journey-to-becoming-a-full-time-youtuber-with-a-quarter-million-subscribers-e56-jarrod-farncomb/ (Our episode w/ Jarrod’s Tech) https://futuretribe.podbean.com/e/how-to-break-into-the-entertainment-industry-e51-pip-rasmussen-part-1/ (Our episode w/ Pip Rasmussen) https://www.hyperxgaming.com/us/microphone/quadcast-gaming-microphone (The microphone we use to record) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors [00:00:00] Hayden: [00:00:00] That's the biggest problem we run into constantly where our best guests, sometimes I've had the worst equipment and it's ended up being like an episode that I'm not happy with just because I know how good it could have been.  [00:00:12] Welcome  [00:00:13] Intro: [00:00:13] to the future tribe podcast, where we're all about taking your future to the next level, whether it is interviewing guests or unpacking strategies, you know, we will be talking about getting things done and backing you a fellow optimistic, go-getters. And now as always, here's your host, the formidable fortunate and highly favoured Germaine Muller.  [00:00:37] Germaine: [00:00:37] Hello, feature tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. On this episode, we're doing something again a little bit different. , I've got Hayden Fitzgerald with me, how you'd lay Hayden.  [00:00:48] Hayden: [00:00:48] Real good. [00:00:50] Germaine: [00:00:50] Thanks for joining. Um, this has a bit of a special sort of episode. I know we had a special episode about what would it be seven or eight episodes ago, but [00:01:00] sort of celebrating the big five over the half century. Um, but on this episode we're actually celebrating. A year since we started the podcast, which is, um, being awesome. [00:01:09] And you've been there from the start. Yeah. Um, it's, it's all about, I guess, talking, looking back into the podcast itself, um, podcasting in general. Um, and then, um, I mean, we'll start it off with talking about what we do at future theory. Um, the podcast for us was really. Another way of marketing. It's another medium. [00:01:28] Like, I mean, everyone's familiar with videography. Podcasting is taking on it's own sort of thing around the world, but not so much in Australia yet by field.  [00:01:39]Hayden: [00:01:39] Um, I feel like podcast consumption is still really big in Australia, but in terms of podcast creators know a lot of people or a lot of podcasts, I listen to it don't actually get created in Australia. [00:01:50] Germaine: [00:01:50] So it's sort of. We are consuming a lot of international podcasts,  [00:01:56] Hayden: [00:01:56] which I guess is true for a lot of like entertainment media, but [00:02:00] especially for podcasts.  [00:02:01] Germaine: [00:02:01] Yeah. It's it's and you know, podcasting is started to really hit mainstream in the last year or so with Spotify purchasing anchor and yeah. Joe Joe Rogan signed. [00:02:15] Hayden: [00:02:15] So Joe Rogan signed, I believe it was a $200 million deal to basically go exclusive with. Uh, Uh, Spotify, which is pretty common. I mean, other podcasts  have signed pretty big deals like that. So, yeah, it's not surprising, but it is interesting to say like a dollar tag put two, no, the worth of podcasts and yeah. [00:02:35] Yeah. It's interesting for the creators. It's definitely gives a lot of. You know, power to them and how much they can expect to get from ad revenue and stuff. We'll get, we'll  [00:02:43] Germaine: [00:02:43] get into that a little bit later on, but, uh, I guess before we get into it, the big, um, thing that we want to talk about was at future theory we do, with your marketing, we build websites. [00:02:53] We're always looking and experimenting with what's coming up or what's next and trying to, I guess, [00:03:00] be as much ahead of the curve as possible. Um, and. Part of that is, is just the importance of marketing, obviously being, being so marketing focused and the podcast was one of those attempts. Um, and I just wanted to mention before we, I guess really roll into it that we're at the moment actually hiring for a marketing and communications coordinator internally, um, or looking for someone who's, who's going to help us internally as well as engage with clients. [00:03:25] So. This episode goes out Thursday morning. Um, and the deadline for applications is actually Friday. Um, Afternoon or Friday close of business. So if you're listening to this and you enjoy podcasting, um, you enjoy just marketing plays. Uh, we will have a link in the description, check it out and please supply it. [00:03:43] But that's a nice segue. You're talking about podcasting more specifically now. We're celebrating a year since we started the podcast. It's I feel like we've learned a lot in the last couple months.  [00:03:55] Hayden: [00:03:55] Yeah. Compared to where we were like to where we are now. It's night and day.  [00:03:59] Germaine: [00:03:59] I mean, [00:04:00] I would hope so.  [00:04:00] Hayden: [00:04:00] Yeah. [00:04:01] You do anything for a year yet. You're at least rod at it.  [00:04:06] Germaine: [00:04:06] I mean, we've, we've started uploading videos to YouTube recently. Um, that was something that I meant to do a long, long time ago, but yeah. Time is always, always the problem. And it requires its own sort of videos onto YouTube as a whole other world, a whole other thing. [00:04:23]Um, but I'm glad that we finally hopped onto that. Um, but over the last 12 months, um, how's it, how's it been for you? Like what, what are some things that you've picked up over the last 12 months Hayden?  [00:04:34]Hayden: [00:04:34] Um, I think it's always interesting. When you consume a top of media and then, you know, you ended up creating it. [00:04:41] And I think it would be the same as a person who critiques music or just listens to music generally, and then tries to make their own album. I think you would look at your critiques from when you would just consume a lot differently and knowing like the process of it, what it takes from getting, whether it be a guest don't want to [00:05:00] just, you know, recording something to then publishing it to them, promoting it, how. [00:05:04] You know, complex that could often be and how time consuming it is. It really gives you an appreciation for podcasting and especially the people who do it really well.  [00:05:14] Germaine: [00:05:14] Oh, like, I mean, there are a lot of podcasts. I think her podcasts that are quite simply put together, but to me, the biggest sort of appreciation is for those podcasts, that like the storytelling ones, where sort of music, there's a lot of characters. [00:05:31] I  [00:05:31] Hayden: [00:05:31] think a good one. And actually I listened to it on your recommendation with business Wars. By. Yes, by. Wondery,  [00:05:37] Germaine: [00:05:37] yes. Wondery make a whole bunch of podcasts.  [00:05:40] Hayden: [00:05:40] And I think what I appreciate about these podcasts is a lot of, they actually have people who, who their whole job in terms of podcast production is literally just researching topics. [00:05:51] It's, you know, doing the. Informational deep dive D get any fact  [00:05:56] Germaine: [00:05:56] checking,  [00:05:57] Hayden: [00:05:57] stuff like that, to be able to tell a story that [00:06:00] could, could be done in five minutes over a five hour podcast and whether or not you like that is sort of subjective. I know a lot of people that's sort of why they don't like podcasts because they are a bit long winded. [00:06:11] But yeah, I mean, I say all that to say it's been really interesting being on the other side of that and saying. You know how hard it is to raise that level of podcast production  [00:06:22] Germaine: [00:06:22] content. I mean, you know, obviously we, we continue to strive to be as, as good as we can, but like you put in 10 hours a week into it. [00:06:32]Um, I put in a few hours on top of that. It is, it's a lot of work, but let's talk about the pros of, I mean, We, we knew that it was not going to be easy. We didn't, we didn't sort of pick podcasting because we looked at all these different marketing channels and mediums and thought, Oh, this one will be the easiest to get into. [00:06:53] But we also identifi

For this episode of the podcast, we invited Tom Falco to chat with us about his vintage clothes business, Primetime Pickups. Tom is a local entrepreneur who, like many, fell on hard times due to COVID-19 and found himself with limited job prospects as a result of the virus’ effect on the job market. However, instead of sitting idly by waiting for the right job opportunity to come to him, Tom used his free time and marketing prowess to start a successful e-commerce business from the comfort of his own home. During this episode, our guest goes into great detail about how vintage resellers structure their businesses, what he has learned from his competitors, and what Primetime Pickups does differently. Additionally, he talks about the marketing tactics he uses to cut through the noise in such a crowded online marketplace, as well as the importance of authenticity when engaging with your consumer base. We finish up talking to Tom about the future of his business and whether he intends to continue to grow the brand into a physical storefront.  What we talk about   Starting a business during COVID-19 What marketing tactics are suited to an e-commerce businesses The importance of authenticity and transparency in marketing  Scaling up a side hustle   Links from this episode https://www.instagram.com/primetime.pickups/ (Primetime Pickups on Instagram) https://www.primetimepickups.com.au (Primetime Pickups' Website) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)    Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   [00:00:00] Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast on this week's episode, I've got Tom Falco from Primetime Pickups. How are you, Tom?  [00:00:09] Tom: [00:00:09] Good. How are you?  [00:00:10] Germaine: [00:00:10] Thank you. Tell us about a Primetime Pickups before we really get into the hard questions. Yeah.  [00:00:16] Tom: [00:00:16] So just a bit of a basic overview would say, its a vintage clothes business, American sports in spite that I, started out of my bedroom, in Gungahlin Canberra. [00:00:26]Essentially we dropped collections. So, I'll source a whole bunch of clothes in the States, a whole bunch of sort of 90's and 2000's, vintage, sports gear. and then on one day during the month, we'll drop all that gear at once on the website. And yeah the response to that screening look incredible. [00:00:43] It's been amazing so far, so I'm pretty, pretty excited to see where it could go.  [00:00:47] Germaine: [00:00:47] Yeah. Nice. when did you start this whole thing?  [00:00:51]Tom: [00:00:51] It was, essentially when , once COVID, sort of hit . I really had the time to sort of sit down and really had a crack at, sort of doing it,  I had the idea for a while. [00:01:00] [00:01:00]But yeah, once, once COVID hit , so it's sort of been three, three or four, four months. I think two of those months of sort of planning all out and sort of writing up business plans and strategic plans in terms of marketing, how I was going to sort of get it off the ground and then three months of really operating now. [00:01:15] So we've just dropped, uh, our collection to drop date. Um, so we've dropped one collection already. We've dropped a sort of second $25 and under collection gearing up the second collection on the 29th of July.  [00:01:29] Germaine: [00:01:29] Yeah. Wow. That's that's exciting. So that's uh, about nine days away from the, from the time we were recording. [00:01:34] So, um, how old are you now?  [00:01:37]Tom: [00:01:37] So I'm 24.  [00:01:39] Germaine: [00:01:39] Okay. So started starting nice and young. Um, did you have this idea sort of getting into your teenage years or has it been, been a lot longer or more recently that you came up with the idea? Yeah. Well,  [00:01:50] Tom: [00:01:50] it's, it's, it's, it's sort of like an idea that we'll always have. [00:01:53] Like, I, I spent a couple of years over in the States and so I got to experience sort of firsthand the market and demand for [00:02:00] vintage clothes over there. or some more so over here, but. sort of over there used to be sort of, and, you know, go to a thrift shop and you see a, an old school jacket. If it 10 us dollars and jeez like, I wish I could sort of take the time and sell it in Australia, but I never had that sort of platform to do it. [00:02:17] Um, but I guess coming home and having that time to, sort of sit down and really sort of plan it out, and that, that sort of matters should the marketing skills and the communication skills that I was able to sort of. Learn through a couple of years at uni. Mm.  [00:02:31] Germaine: [00:02:31] So you had some sort of background in marketing and communications before you, I guess started the business. [00:02:38] Tom: [00:02:38] Yeah, so I did a, I did a double degree in sports, media and public relations at the University of Canberra. Through that I was, he did a minor in sports marketing and events. So although it's not sort of very specific in terms of  marking in an audience where you're trying to sell them stuff, there's still a lot of sort of skills at correlate that I learned in my [00:03:00] time there. [00:03:00] And I had the, I was fortunate enough to do a whole bunch of internships through my time at university of Canberra that I think really helped me out.  [00:03:08] Germaine: [00:03:08] Yeah. Yeah. And I guess you had a, skillset that was transferable, from, I mean, sports is just sort of one, one genre, so you can still transfer it over as you've found. [00:03:17] Tom: [00:03:17] Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent.  [00:03:20] Germaine: [00:03:20] Yeah. I mean, tell me how you source. So you, do you do a drop, how big, big sort of the drop in terms of say retail value? Um, how big have they been? So,  [00:03:32]Tom: [00:03:32] in terms of, flux paces and. It's just my job. So the first drop was about 30 pieces. And now, obviously that was sort of the first one. [00:03:42] So we went a little bit smaller with that. Just because the overhead on buying all the imagery and stuff, it was like it was a big risk. So the second one, now that I've seen that there's a demand for it. And as a market for, and people are willing to sort of, you know, Take money out of their pocket to buy our stuff. [00:03:56] I can sort of scale it up a little bit more. So I think the next one is about 50 [00:04:00] pieces,  collection threes, ia all ordered , so that the next shop, all ordered now it's all being shipped over now and that'd be closer to sort of 60, 70 pieces and really sort of just scale it up from that point. So  [00:04:11] Germaine: [00:04:11] just scaling up slowly. [00:04:13] Yeah. How, how do you source them? Like, are you, were you there originally and now are you sort of. Calling, through shops over there or how are you managing that side  [00:04:23] Tom: [00:04:23] of it? It's people don't do them very similar stuff to me. So a lot of, a lot of people want to stay w. Well, we'll sort of be the first person to go to the thrift shop and buy a whole bunch of bunch of stuff and then throw it up on, apps like Depop, Ebay and other one Instagram. [00:04:38]There's a ton of people selling stuff in the sites that that'll bought from the thrift shop for sort of 10 us dollars and then sell one onto you for 15 us dollars. And then obviously you gotta pay shipping and stuff like that. But, being able to source it's very like very, it's very easy to find these people that are doing that. [00:04:55]Like it takes a ton of time. I've got, I think the first collection also was. [00:05:00] Probably about six different suppliers. and obviously I said that the first collection was 30 pieces that works out to be like five pieces as far. Whereas now I'm sort of uncomfortable with this clause that I have and the squads that I'm borrowing stuff off. [00:05:13] I'm more comfortable making. I think I did an order for 17 sweatshirts for collection two that should arrive this week. which is. So much easier than, sort of ordering a five or six different people.  [00:05:26] Germaine: [00:05:26] Yeah. Yeah. And it makes it more manageable for you. And then obviously it brings down the overheads in terms of yeah. [00:05:31] Tom: [00:05:31] And in terms of prices as well. shipping is another one shipping gets expensive and if the Mo sort of more you order, the more you can save on, on each piece. But then also, building relationships with, with the supplies. I guess for me, When I first started, it was, it was very sort of like always reaching out every day. [00:05:51] I was messaging. I was probably sending close to 50 messages a day, people on Depop, people want to hear about to people on Instagram and handful of get back to me and stuff [00:06:00] like that. Now it's got to the point where I've made a couple of hours off people. Yeah, reach out to me once they've got sports stuff that I think I might be interested in. [00:06:09] So it's sort of,  [00:06:10] Germaine: [00:06:10] because it's an easy sell for them rather than answering questions from, you know, every Tom Dick and Harry, it's just talk to Tom. Go mate, are you keen? This is what I've got and then  [00:06:21] Tom: [00:06:21] it's much more passive on it's because I enjoyed doing the marketing side of it. I enjoy publishing photos on Instagram. [00:06:30] I enjoy taking photos. I enjoy replying to people's messages doing Q and A's live stream button. Or I love that stuff. I hate sitting on my phone and browsing through. As far as the clothes and messaging people and that like, you have to do it. but the, obviously the more, the more you do it, the more passi

In this week's episode we had the pleasure of talking with Canberra-based YouTuber, hardware reviewer, and all-around tech guru, Jarrod Farncomb. Jarrod started his YouTube journey just over five years ago as a creative side hobby, and now has amassed 230k subscribers across all of his accounts. In 2019, he decided to quit his job in IT in order to pursue content creation full-time and hasn’t looked back since. As you can imagine, Jarrod’s has a lot of great insights into the best tactics for getting your YouTube career started, picking your content type,  as well as how to sustainably grow your audience. Our guest also lifts back the curtain on how YouTubers monetise their content in 2020 as ad revenue becomes less lucrative for content creators. The show then concludes with Jarrod discussing his humble beginnings and how he has evolved as a YouTuber over the past five years.   What we talk about Jarrod’s journey to becoming a fulltime YouTuber  How to monetise your content Tips for starting out on YouTube and how to grow your audience Links from this episode https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Rzju32yQPkQ7oIhmeuLwg (Jarrod’s channel on YouTube) https://twitter.com/JarrodsTech (Jarrod on Twitter) https://www.facebook.com/jarrodstech (Jarrod on Facebook)   Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)    Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   [00:00:00] Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, future tribe on this week's episode, I am joined by Jarrod Farncomb. A YouTuber, or,  how would you describe yourself? Jarrod?  [00:00:09] Jarrod: [00:00:09] Yeah, I guess tech YouTuber is what everyone tends to. [00:00:13] Refer to me as,  [00:00:14] Germaine: [00:00:14] yeah. Well, and truly tech YouTuber, you released your first video about five years ago. And now you're up to what, 214,000 subscribers, on your channel. So that's, that's pretty solid. And you've got a second channel as well that you started recently. Is that right?  [00:00:29] Jarrod: [00:00:29] Yeah. Yeah. That's right. [00:00:30] Been going for five years and, yeah, I just started a second channel couple of months ago, just to kind of experiment with some new kinds of content.  [00:00:39] Germaine: [00:00:39] And what's the second channel  [00:00:41] Jarrod: [00:00:41] called it's just Jarrod's laptops. So similar to the main channel, which is Jarrod's Tech.  [00:00:46] Germaine: [00:00:46] yeah, [00:00:50] but it's, but it's pretty cool. You're sort of creating this, , actually hold on. You, you were aware of Linus tech tips, right?  [00:00:56] Jarrod: [00:00:56] Yeah, of course.  [00:00:57] Germaine: [00:00:57] Is it inspired by you know, first name [00:01:00] and then last name has sort of the category sort of approach or was it just something that you came up with independent of that. [00:01:07] Jarrod: [00:01:07] Yeah. So, I mean, I definitely did spend a while thinking about how I wanted to do it, whether I just wanted to go like random catchy name or actually put part of my name behind it. And yeah, I did see some other channels like that and I thought, you know, that sounds pretty good. I'll put my name in it and stand behind the thing rather than just be some random. [00:01:26] Name? That means whatever. Like, that's just, that's just what I chose. Could've gone either way  [00:01:31] Germaine: [00:01:31] though  [00:01:32] Yeah, I mean, but it's, I think, you know, over the last few years, it's it's, um, Probably being a pretty wise decision. I know you didn't put a lot thought behind it, but I think the way things are transpiring now, um, there's a lot of, um, a lot of, I guess, power behind sort of being an independent YouTube or an independent personality, especially when, you know, People can just get paid to do stuff. [00:01:56] So I think having your name there, yes. It's only your first name, [00:02:00] but, um, that adds a bit of, um, credibility to you that you're sort of putting your name out there and saying, you know, when I, when I give you my thoughts, um, it is, it is me. It's not just this faceless entity that can take money from, you know, questionable sources to say certain things. [00:02:17] Jarrod: [00:02:17] Yeah, exactly. Sorry. Essentially it becomes the brand, I suppose.  [00:02:21] Germaine: [00:02:21] Yeah, yeah. As an individual as well. Now, when did you start? So you started YouTube five years ago. was that like a full time thing or are you experimenting back then?  [00:02:31]Jarrod: [00:02:31] Uh, yes. So basically the way it started is kind of interesting, I was just lying in bed one night and I couldn't sleep. [00:02:37] And it was like three in the morning and I'd been there for hours and I was just thinking like, wouldn't it be fun to like create some videos or something? Cause I've been watching a lot of other channels out there. And I thought, you know, I could do that. That's that doesn't seem that hard. I mean, it was a bit harder than I thought at the time, but story. [00:02:55] Yeah. So I pretty much got out of bed that night and just. Made the channel. [00:03:00] And I think I made the first video a few days after that. It was just like a basic tutorial for how to do something in Linux which, you know, the channel isn't really about. But yeah, that's, that's how it got started just five years ago. [00:03:13] Couldn't sleep, which lead to the point where I just had to get up and do something and, uh, yeah. I thought at that time though, it was just, uh, I tried to do one video a week for the first, probably first two or three years. It was maybe one a week. There were a few breaks in there in between where I just wouldn't do anything for a few months, but yeah, it's definitely part time, at least in the beginning. [00:03:33]moved into full time. it was March, 2019, I believe. So I've been a bit over, year now  [00:03:41] Germaine: [00:03:41] Right. Wow. So how old were you when you, so five years ago? How old are you.  [00:03:46] Jarrod: [00:03:46] Uh, yeah, it would have, yeah, it would have been 25 back then. Cause I'm 30 today.  [00:03:50] Germaine: [00:03:50] 30 today. Okay. And so you started that, were you working in a similar field, like in a techie field at the time or? [00:03:59] Jarrod: [00:03:59] Yeah. [00:04:00] So I've always worked in tech to some degree. So five years ago, I think when, where I was working, then I think I was still working in, uh, as a CIS admin. So systems administrator, so like managing servers and computers and that type of thing. And then shortly after that, I started to move to, penetration testing. [00:04:19] So like essentially hacking websites and you know, that type of stuff, which was pretty fun. But yeah, just doing the videos on the sides I found, I just found more interest in that over time.  [00:04:31] Germaine: [00:04:31] Yeah. So you're, you're a Canberra boy or what, where are you? Where are you? I mean, you're in Canberra now, right? [00:04:38] Jarrod: [00:04:38] Yeah, sir. I'm originally from Darwin, but I've, I've lived here since 2003, I think just after the Bush fires. So that's how long I've been here.  [00:04:48] Germaine: [00:04:48] So basically a Canberra , boy.  [00:04:50] Jarrod: [00:04:50] Yeah.  [00:04:52] Germaine: [00:04:52] Awesome. And then going through school, did you study. Sort of take IT. Or was that, was that just something that you fell into your [00:05:00] post-school  [00:05:01] Jarrod: [00:05:01] Yeah so I tried to do pretty much. [00:05:04] As many IT classes as I could. So I pick much whatever I could just max out that limit and everything else, just nowhere near as interested in. So yeah. And we tried to do a focus on that, even though a lot of the classes back then, what particularly not interesting, or, you know, like some of them were just really boring things like, you know, learn Microsoft Excel and word processing and that type of thing. [00:05:29] But I found that more interesting than like English and you know, that type of stuff.  [00:05:34] Germaine: [00:05:34] Yeah. Yeah. I still remember. We used to work on Excel and, you know, we had to come up with, a way of like generating drawers. Using Excel and it was cool, but you know, it's, it's, it's quite different now use Excel day in, day out, but nowhere near to that capacity, because there's just dedicated software to do that and dedicated ways to do that. [00:05:54] So I think, I mean, naturally it shifts a lot, but I think in the last sort of. 10 [00:06:00] 15 years it's shifted even more than more than we would have expected, especially with sort of the rise of rise of SAS. And then, um, more, more sort of, uh, tech, tech adjacent stuff, or it adjacent stuff like you do on YouTube. [00:06:13] Now you were talking about doing sort of penetration testing. Um, I'm sure at the time you were sort of seeing the, of the importance of cyber security and, that would have been, you know, a lot of. A lot of potential there for you, whether it's, you know, not, not that everything's about money, but there would have been potential to make a solid amount of money. [00:06:33] If you were able to actually at a relatively young age to build out more expertise and then move out and start consulting. Did that ever sort of come up or did you do that for a little while while running the YouTube channel?  [00:06:47] Jarrod: [00:06:47] Yeah. So I definitely considered that. So there is for sure, a lot of money in the security field, as you say, it's definitely expanding, the place where I worked. [00:06:57] It was rapidly growing, still growing at the [00:07:00] moment from what I've heard from some old colleagues. So yeah, definitely a lot of m

In this week’s instalment of the Future Tribe podcast, we chat with CMO of Thycotic and best-selling author, Steve Kahan. Steve has worked in the start-up scene for over 30 years and in that time has been able to help companies such as Thycotic go public or be sold, resulting in a total value of more than $3 billion. As you can imagine, Germaine and Steve spend a great deal of this episode talking about the benefits of starting your career off at a start-up as opposed to a large corporation. Our guest also gives some solid advice on how to differentiate a good start-up from a bad one and how to find positions in these companies, as they can often be hard to find. The episode concludes with Steve talking about how he was able to find a good work-life balance despite his busy schedule.     What we talk about Working at a start-up vs. working at a large corporation Alternative employment routes Content marketing and value creation Finding a work-life balance Links from this episode https://beastartupsuperstar.com/ (Steve’s Website) https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekahan (Steve’s Linkedin) https://www.amazon.com/Be-Startup-Superstar-Ignite-Working/dp/1119660408 (Steve’s Best Selling Book) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website) Transcript  Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   Germaine: [00:00:00] . [00:00:00] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast on this week's episode, we've got Steve Kahan from Thycotic. How are you, Steve? [00:00:08] Steve: [00:00:08] I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. [00:00:10] Germaine: [00:00:10] No worries at all. Um, let's get the ball rolling. What's what's Thycotic all about to start off with and what do you do there? [00:00:17] Steve: [00:00:17] So Thycotic is a cybersecurity company focused on protecting, what's known as privileged passwords that exists throughout any organization's infrastructure. And I'm the chief marketing officer. [00:00:31] Germaine: [00:00:31] Okay. So is it sort of like a last pass, but you know, were way more advanced for sort of enterprise? Is that, is that how we can think of you? [00:00:41] Steve: [00:00:41] In a way, right? So  last pass a good product, and it sort of works for, personal users, some, sometimes small businesses and really where Thycotic  focuses in on is nonhuman passwords as well as human as well. So if you think about [00:01:00] it, Every operating system, database application, et cetera, has a password associated with them. [00:01:06] And big companies have no idea how many passwords they have. And so they go unmanaged and as a result, they're not secured and we help to secure them and reduce their risks. [00:01:19] Germaine: [00:01:19] Right? So API keys, things like that as well, I assume. [00:01:23] Steve: [00:01:23] Yes. [00:01:24] Germaine: [00:01:24] Okay. And how big Thycotic to get, give an idea of, the, the team behind you? [00:01:30] Steve: [00:01:30] Sure. So actually when I started at Thycotic a little over four years ago, we were 6 million in revenue. And now , four years later we'll be 106 million. So we've been on a rapid growth, Trajectory. And it's really the result of the market that we play in. And I think working with some amazingly talented people and just really great solutions, [00:01:56]Germaine: [00:01:56] let's, um, let's sort of rewind a little bit. [00:02:00] [00:01:59] How did you find yourself at Thycotic? You give us an idea of sort of your journey to get there. Yeah. And, let's start with, what you sort of did out of school. and you know, Give us a bit of a timeline. [00:02:12] Steve: [00:02:12] Sure. So, uh, now, as you might be able to see if you, if you happen to be able to see the video that I've got a few lines in my face and some gray hair. [00:02:22] And so I've actually been in the technology space and mostly in cyber security for 30 years. And so, when I graduated university, I  went to school and would hear very often from my father when I would grow up, he'd say, Steve, get your degree, go to work for a large corporation. You work hard. They'll take care of you and you'll have a great career. [00:02:47] And of course he would say your mother and I would much prefer that you become a doctor or a lawyer. But short of that, getting a job at a large corporation will do. So that was the path I took. And so I [00:03:00] graduated university. I went to work at a. A large, organization processing claims. And I remember staring at my bank statement and the pile of claims. [00:03:11] I had a process that day. Wondering how on earth will I ever get ahead? And I work long hours, the student loans would take a hold of my paychecks before they ever get a chance to hit my bank account. So about a year or so into that role, I asked myself an important question and that was how could I earn a great living and love the work I do. [00:03:36] And that led me into the startup world. And now I am, at my seventh startup, in a 30 year span. all six prior have either sold or have gone public, generating over $3.5 Billion in shareholder value. [00:03:53] Germaine: [00:03:53] Wow. That is a, that's some big numbers right there. so how's the Thycotic. So cause you know, one of a [00:04:00] 106 million, quite a solid sort of traction for, for a startup, how old's Thycotic to start off with. [00:04:07] Steve: [00:04:07] So Thycotic. When, when I joined, I joined along with our CEO. He and I had worked together in the past when a venture capital company invested in the company. And, and Thycotic was a few years old when we joined and now, we've are about eight years, uh, in the making. And so the, the first few years, it sort of struggled the around, around it was bootstrapped company. [00:04:35] It had a good product, uh, but really the founder, uh, needed some help and capital to grow the company. And it's when the. Insight venture partners actually bought into the company and brought in people like myself and the CEO. When we. Really took a great start and a great foundation that the company had also a tremendous culture [00:05:00] and, uh, built on it and did sort of the things that, that experienced, technology executives would do too. [00:05:07] help, the company, get on that growth path that we have been fortunate enough to achieve. [00:05:13] Germaine: [00:05:13] Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. And, we're jumping around a little bit, but now you said this is your, this was his seventh startup you worked at, is that correct? [00:05:21] Steve: [00:05:21] That's correct. [00:05:21] Germaine: [00:05:21] Yeah. So let's rewind. I'm actually, how old are you now, if you don't mind me asking, just to sort of pull things on an actual year, year sort of timeline. [00:05:30] Steve: [00:05:30] For sure. So I'm actually 58 years old, so, I'm old and over the Hill. [00:05:37] Germaine: [00:05:37] Hey, Hey, you, you don't know how science is going for, for all we know we've got a, you know, another hundred years left in ya. ,So let's go back 30 years. So that'll put you at say 28. Um, is that when you started your first startup job? [00:05:51] Steve: [00:05:51] Yeah, actually a few years before that. Right. So I, I started, at first startup, I kinda made all the mistakes in the world just in terms of [00:06:00] joining that company. But,  the company that I joined, it was pretty cool. It was a, I was the first person hired into marketing. And, it was, hired into a company with a small team of crazies hell bent on changing the world and changing the way applications were being developed. [00:06:18] And so it was pretty cool. I mean, uh, when I joined, uh, interestingly in the first week, I remember looking at the office next to mine and there were people. Rolling out the copy machine. They unplug, plugged it, put it on a Dolly, roll that right out. And I came to find out a few days later. It was because of the company couldn't afford to pay for that copy machine. [00:06:43] Germaine: [00:06:43] Wow. [00:06:44] Steve: [00:06:44] And, uh, it was, you know, pretty interesting, but I was blind to it. I was so pumped and excited to work on this venture with this team that just was so passionate, had this just a total commitment and belief that somehow we would figure it out. And just a [00:07:00] few years later, that company that couldn't afford to pay. [00:07:03] For the copy machine, it went public and I got the bug and never left the startup world. [00:07:08] Germaine: [00:07:08] Wow. , what year was that? When you joined?, [00:07:11] Steve: [00:07:11] Oh my goodness. [00:07:11] Many, many years ago. I mean, it was probably 25 years ago. [00:07:16] Germaine: [00:07:16] Yeah. Yep, yep. Yep. So you were the first person going into marketing or into that? Sort of the marketing roles at that, that organization. [00:07:23] How did you manage to actually nailed that one down? Like, did you have marketing experience before? Did you study marketing? how did, how did you manage that? [00:07:32] Steve: [00:07:32] I really didn't. Right. And so, I was just super aggressive just in terms of, being persistent with the company's executives. Uh, they probably couldn't afford a, an experienced marketer either. [00:07:44] So circumstances were such that it worked on both ends and they knew that I'd stop at no ends to,  do what it would take to really learn the ropes. That it was cool because, you know, if you think about, if you're hired [00:08:00] into a large corporation, you're oftentimes hired into a smaller pigeonholed role where your sphere of influence is quite small. [00:08:09] And so, being hired into that startup, if the work was going to get done, I was going to be t

In this week’s episode of the Future Tribe Podcast, we had the pleasure of talking to young business owner and inclusion consultant, Katie Zink. For those who are unaware, inclusion specialists such as Katie consult with businesses on how they can improve their workplace culture in order to make it as inviting and equitable as possible. We start off this episode with Katie and Germaine discussing this new burgeoning industry as well as how Katie herself transitioned into it from her typical 9-5 job. During this discussion, our guest also outlines how she was able to finance her startup by developing supplementary revenue streams and living frugally. After this, Germaine asks Katie what it was like starting her own business during the COVID epidemic and how she has handled client acquisition at a time in which most companies are tightening their budgets. The show then culminates in an interesting discussion pertaining to why exhibiting social responsibility is becoming an integral part of corporate strategy in 2020.   What we talk about What is social consulting Starting a business during COVID Corporate Social Responsibility Content marketing Links from this episode https://katiezink.co/ (Katie’s Website) https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieszink (Katie’s Linkedin) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript    Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors   [00:00:00] Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, future tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast on this week's episode, we've got Katie Zink. How are you today? Katie? [00:00:08] Katie: [00:00:08] I am doing well Germaine, thank you so much. How's it going for you? [00:00:11] Germaine: [00:00:11] Yeah, not too bad. Not too bad. You're in the U S is that [00:00:15] Katie: [00:00:15] right? [00:00:16] I am, yes. I'm on the West coast of the us and Portland, Oregon. [00:00:21] Germaine: [00:00:21] Nice, nice. So, before we get the ball rolling, give me an idea of what you do. you know, what, what we're here to talk [00:00:27] Katie: [00:00:27] about. [00:00:28] Absolutely. Yeah. So, I, I have launched kind of my signature consulting program, in this, in the newest iteration this year. and what that is, is a, a cult consulting program for organizations looking to commit formally or actualize diversity equity and inclusion work. [00:00:47] So, Especially where I live in Portland, kind of in the tech scene is where I reside primarily. there is a lot of activity right now, figuring out what that means and how to go about it in a strategic way. So what my con [00:01:00] my program does, it's a, it's a three month guided track. that's essentially the process of any kind of strategic planning process where I, guide there, their equity work and help them figure out. [00:01:11] How the first year will look. so it's for organizations who know they want to commit, they just don't really know how to get started yet. [00:01:18] Germaine: [00:01:18] Okay. So, for those who are listening and, you know, for me as well, let's, could we sort of simplify, like what, what you do? you know, you've used words like equity, diversity, inclusivity, In sort of layman's terms. [00:01:32] What does that mean? Like what if you, if you have the effect that, you intend to have, what, what is the difference that you make? [00:01:42] Katie: [00:01:42] It's a good question. So. We were seeing for, you know, decades and decades that specifically in the tech industry, it was a, a white majority white male majority to be more exact. [00:01:55] And so there started to be a lot of passion behind diversifying who's [00:02:00] working in those fields, in that field and, and, and knowing, that skill set and being able to earn a wage that you earn in the tech world. So, there have been. Lots of kinds of committees and organizations that are aligning to figure out how to diversify tech talent. [00:02:18]there are a lot of different programmings coming around about, getting high school students, ready to enter the, a career in tech, if that's what they want or getting them interested in pursuing it, helping them believe that they can do it, you know? And so the goal really is to. Make sure we don't have just a homogenous white majority anymore. [00:02:36] Eventually that's going to take a long time to get there, but there is a lot of, I think, momentum now. And I think even, even, especially now, I'm in the United States, we're really waking up to what racism has done and, you know, what's actually been doing and is doing so my work is really to kind of wake people up additionally and figure out. [00:02:58] Well, how the cultures need to [00:03:00] shift in order for more people to feel like themselves. And like they can bring their whole selves to work. it's more, or about people feeling like they have a voice to enact change and less of kind of prescriptive top down leadership kind of. Been doing it, you know, doing it as they've been doing it, kind of rhetoric. [00:03:18] It's just more of an inclusive, people just having a sense of belonging and feeling kind of connected. And you know, the ideas that if people are more engaged and feeling like themselves at work, innovation will soar productivity will be better. So it really is kind of. A holistic way to think about organizational effectiveness in a way that benefits everybody, not just the same types of people, getting opportunities over and over again. [00:03:46] Germaine: [00:03:46] And I guess part of this whole thought process is that when you make it more accessible for more types of people, so not just, you know, the white man that you would also, I mean, even thinking about innovation, [00:04:00] you'll get a different mindset, different ideas. You, you naturally sort of opening it up to, you know, different races, different backgrounds, different experiences, different genders, and so on and so forth. [00:04:09] So, I never thought about it from that angle. because, you know, I guess I had to hit the, you know, I guess the hard stuff sort of pretty early on in our, in our conversation. I think traditionally you've sort of, people have looked at it as, you know, why are we trying to force this thing that doesn't exist? [00:04:28] Like, you know, if, if, this gender or this type of person is predominant in this sector, that there might be a reason for it. and I guess the, the assumption was that the reason was it just attracted that specific type of person versus looking at it from, I guess, Well, we've sort of touched on, in, yeah, maybe we just the system and was just in place to suit that person. [00:04:53] So we almost, the system just was selective. not, not, maybe not as obvious, obviously as, as [00:05:00] we needed to be for everyone to sort of be like, okay, I can see why that's a problem, but, Historically, it's just being a very selective system. Is that, is that fair to say? [00:05:09] Katie: [00:05:09] Yeah, I think it's abundantly fair and, and really astute actually to think about, you know, I have heard, you know, predominantly white males say, well, won't, won't diversity just happen naturally or kind of, like you said, maybe there is a reason why, you know, men gravitate towards tech. [00:05:24] You know, dominant positions, there is a reason why it's because those jobs and benefiting from that career were, was a system designed by, by them. So it was, they were, they designed a system to benefit themselves where, you know, it was just that one, one perspective. I think that's absolutely fair to say. [00:05:42] Germaine: [00:05:42] Well, exactly. And even the outcomes, Was designed or the outcomes, from, you know, receiving those promotions or getting into those jobs. we're set up in such a way that they were attractive to, you know, A certain type of person. [00:06:00] because, because let's be honest, you, you ideally you would do work for more than just the money and, you know, there's, there's a whole lot of other things that you get out of it. [00:06:08] And naturally over the years, it's just been refined and refined and refined so that those outcomes are, desirable. Because as an employer, as, as an organization, as a company, it's desirable to make. Those outcomes desirable versus undesirable. Right. So I guess, you're making me think about it more because I have, you know, over the years, my, my opinions have changed and sort of, as I've become more educated, it's, it's changed. [00:06:35] But I feel like this alone, this conversation alone in the last five minutes has educated me even further because I have just looked at it as, you know, why are we trying to force something that, hasn't existed or doesn't exist? And, you know, that was me a few years ago before I did enough study and started to understand it. [00:06:51] But now, now I'm understanding it even even more. So that's really interesting, but let's quickly rewind and, go back to how you got it. [00:07:00] you know, what, what, what led you to this? Because it's not really, you know, no one sort of, At least no one I know has sort of said, you know, I want to grow up and, get into what you've gotten into. [00:07:12] It's usually accounting doctor, you know, entrepreneur maybe, or YouTuber nowadays, but, how did you end up where you've ended up? [00:07:20] Katie: [00:07:20] Yeah. Oh, and I didn't think I was going to be doing this either. I was one of those people that really had no idea. What to do, where I saw myself going. but what I did know, yeah. [00:07:30] I said, I just had to try a lot of things. I wouldn't say that I started off with, so much of a growth mindset as I kind of, self adopted one whe

In this week’s episode of the Future Tribe Podcast, we chat with the Founder and CEO of Crediverso, Carlos Hernandez. Crediverso is an informational software suite that is aimed at helping Hispanic and Latino Americans become more financially literate. As Crediverso is a young company that is growing rapidly, Carlos shares a great deal of information about how the initial stages of business/product development work,  as well as how he sought out funding from venture capitalists. Later on in the show, Germaine and Carlos discuss the cultural gaps companies need to cross when entering into new markets and why even large companies fail at doing so. Finally, both our host and our guest discuss the importance of staffing your company with the right people and the benefits of having colleagues to vet your ideas.   What we talk about Business/Product development and how to seek out venture capital  Overcoming cultural gaps  The importance of staffing your company with the right people Links from this episode https://crediverso.com/en/ (Crediverso’s Website) https://www.facebook.com/crediverso (Crediverso on Facebook) https://www.instagram.com/crediverso/ (Crediverso on Instagram) Find us elsewhere https://futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe Website) https://www.instagram.com/futuretri.be/ (Future Tribe on Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainemuller/ (Germaine on LinkedIn) https://www.instagram.com/germa_ne/ (Germaine on Instagram) https://futuretheory.com.au/ (Futuretheory Website)   Transcript    Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors [00:00:00.750] - Germaine Hello, Future Tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast on this week's episode. I've got Carlos from Crediverso. How are you today Carlos?   [00:00:11.370] - Carlos I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for asking. Really excited to talk to you.    [00:00:14.520] - Germaine Yeah. I mean, let's get the ball rolling. What is Crediverso to start off with?    [00:00:20.520] - Carlos Absolutely, so we are an online financial products marketplace designed for U.S. Hispanics, a huge population here in the States. 60 million, 60 million people, which is about 20 percent of our population. Yeah.  it's a big portion of the population. And the amazing thing is that they are very much underserved by existing financial institutions and financial intermediary platforms like the companies that give you personal finance information resources.   [00:00:46.500] - Carlos First of all, many, much of it is not available in Spanish. They don't advertise in Hispanic neighborhoods and the content is not designed or presented in a way that is accessible to the typical Hispanic consumer.   [00:00:56.880] - Carlos So what we tried to do is provide easy to access bilingual tools that help consumers understand complex financial decisions like how to pick the right credit card or how to apply for a mortgage. We also offer a ton of educational resources, like a Step-By-Step Guide on how to get a free credit report or in a particular economic circumstances, we find ourselves in right now how to make sure you get your stimulus check or a government loan and things like that.   [00:01:21.000] - Germaine So is there such a need? I mean, so 20 percent of the population, you said, is Hispanic.  Is that is there a need then that they get that information in Spanish or in the in that in a different language or what ways? Why is that need sort of there? I guess what I'm trying to identify are there then if they are 20 percent of the population are that then other groups as well in the US where they would be better served if they where delivered that information in their own native language?   [00:01:54.720] - Carlos Absolutely, and you know, we're starting with Hispanics as the consumer base that we know best. But you're you're absolutely right. The one of the great things about being in the United States and about what I love about living in Los Angeles is that you can stand on a street corner in L.A. and see street signs and storefronts in six different languages English, Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Tagalog, all sorts of languages. And so what we're starting with, with the Hispanic audience in the United States, ideally, I think there is a need for for a service like ours, for many different communities.   [00:02:26.550] - Carlos And the way that I approach how that need plays out for the Hispanic population is you can look at the media landscape, for example, and in the US, you know, it certainly is different where you are imagine. But in the U.S., we have something like, I don't know, 400, 500 channels that are offered in English and we have two that are offered in Spanish. And so the need is just absolutely not met in many of these different verticals.   [00:02:53.820] - Carlos Finance is a really important one for many, many different reasons.   [00:02:59.280] - Carlos Access to small business loans, access to student loans, and anything as simple as getting a credit check or getting a credit card. And so while that's not the entirety of the 60 million person population speaks only Spanish, we go beyond just a you know, we're not just a translation service. There really is a cultural relevance component to this in terms of the way it's presented. You can take a credit card, for example, and a typical general market site might focus on, OK, what's a what's the best credit card if you want to build up some travel points to go to Europe next summer.   [00:03:33.950]  And that's great. You know, it's play folks are taking those kind of trips, maybe if maybe not right now, but hopefully soon in the future. Yeah. With our specific demographic that we're offering the service towards, many of them maybe have, you know, never been on a plane more interested in things like what is a good credit card if I don't have a Social Security number?   [00:03:52.290]  What does a good credit card if I just say so, you can sort of you're looking positive. It's the language is sort of the easiest way to identify who your market is. But then that has implications that sort of spread much further into the community, into how they live their life. And even, you know, as you've touched on sort of what then normal is versus, you know, what the average Americans and normal is as well. So you're really just I mean, money at the end of the day is a very lifestyle thing.   [00:04:21.570] - Germaine So that's what you're trying to do, is sort of talk about that from a lifestyle style sort of perspective. We didn't talk about what your role is and you know what you do at Crediverso.   [00:04:34.530] - Carlos Yeah thanks for asking. So I founded Crediverso about at this point just over nine months ago. So we are a very young company, but we are growing very quickly. I think we are getting close to 20 people or so on the team across all the different capacities. We just brought on a summer internship team of about seven people, all MBA students, all fantastic everywhere, from engineers to finance backgrounds. So we're growing very quickly. We're expanding into different product verticals.   [00:05:00.930] - Carlos But, yeah, you know, I started this company in late October of last year. And really the idea behind it was that I just started noticing that, hey, why am I not seeing advertisements in Spanish with Hispanic imagery or things that are relevant to the Spanish community on TV, on social media, on Instagram, Facebook? Why is that not there? And after a little bit of research, I realized, hey, it looks like the typical financial institution spends less than two and a half percent of their marketing budget on marketing toward Hispanics.   [00:05:33.630] - Carlos And as I mentioned a minute ago, 20 percent of the population is comprised of that group. So there's a big mismatch there, which, you know, it's bittersweet because on one hand, it means that there is a for a long time there has been a population that has been very much underserved. On the other hand, it provides a business opportunity. And so that's we're kind of approaching from bothof those.   [00:05:49.680] - Germaine Yeah. Right. Very interesting. So you started this about nine, 10 months ago. How old are you now, if you don't mind me asking? 31. So you were probably 30, 31 when you started as well. What drove you to stop this, apart from seeing this market?   [00:06:09.820] - Germaine You know, I'm sure there are a lot of things in life that people come across that, you know, oh, this is a good business opportunity here, but it takes a bit more than a good business opportunity to jump into a business. What what what were the other factors that sort of came into it, you know? Well, you sort of leave me another job or you're finishing up at another business that you started. How did that sort of happen?   [00:06:32.410] - Germaine Perfectly.   [00:06:33.820] - Carlos Yeah. Thanks for asking, Germaine. And really, the way that kind of played out is that I not too long ago graduated from grad school and I did a joint degree program at Harvard in Law and Business. I graduated with my JD and my MBA. And that, you know, I was lucky enough to get to have that great education and learn across a variety of subjects from law all the way to finance how to start a business, how to incorporate a business, all those things that really it's kind of an essential skill set for a founder.   [00:07:08.020] - Carlos So I figured, OK, you know, now I'm young, I'm not married, no kids. Now is probably the best time, if there is one, to take this big risk because it is a big risk. You know, many colleagues went on to very secure jobs in investment banking or consulting or private equity. And that's a that's a very hard wrap because of the hours that they make you work in the lifestyle, but you don't have that same job insecurity.   [00:07:34.090] - Carlos You know, you don't know whether your company wi