Building A Unicorn

The Unicorn Launcher is a podcast that follows the lives of two Australian tech founders who started the company Vygo. The series takes you behind the scenes as the Vygo team tries to recover from the pandemic, and expand into the US market under the guidance of Matt Mochary - a coach who has helped some of the biggest founders in Silicon Valley. Listen to The Unicorn Launcher in your favourite podcast app or visit https://podfollow.com/1636501941

We're launching a daily news podcast called The Defrag. Every weekday we'll cover the latest news at the intersection of technology, business, politics, and science. Listen to The Defrag: https://podfollow.com/thedefrag Become a member of The Defrag and get ad-free episodes: https://thedefrag.com/ Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube.

Food companies are everywhere, and we are constantly bombarded with advertising for food that probably isn't that great for us. But once you’ve eaten all the junk… there are also companies that specialise in helping you shed a few kilos. Kate Save is the CEO and Co-Founder of Be Fit Food, a company which provides scientifically backed meals for rapid weight loss. Kate joined us for our very first Building a Unicorn LIVE event, and has a fascinating journey, that even involved an appearance on Shark Tank. But what happens once you secure an investment from the sharks? Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Transferring money globally has long been dominated by banks, and services like Western Union. The problem with these traditional systems is that customers gets ripped off by poor exchange rates and huge fees. However today’s founder built a unicorn trying to change that. Kristo Käärmann is the CEO and Co-Founder of Transferwise, a global business with 2200 staff that makes sending money easy. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Providing access to training is an important part of running a successful business. You need to give staff opportunities to up-skill so they can progress through your business. And there are many platforms you could join to get access to courses… but keeping track of all those platforms and subscriptions can be challenging. However today’s founder is part of a team that has made that process simple. Vu Tran is the Chief Growth Officer, and co-founder of GO1, an online learning platform that helps businesses provide training to their staff, from a range of sources, with one simple monthly subscription. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Not-for-profit enterprises carry their own set of challenges compared with traditional startups. Unlike a for-profit company, a non-profit is there for a bigger reason. You have a mission that you stand behind, and all the money you make goes back into the business to fulfil that mission. Steve Bevington is the Managing Director of Community Housing Limited, a non-profit enterprise which provides affordable housing for low-income families around the world. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Business often involves making proposals and sending documents. Often those might come in the form of a PDF that you can email, maybe even a powerpoint. You build it once and then when you have new clients, you copy that file - change what you need, and then send it again. It’s a process that can be difficult to manage - and it’s not all that impressive. But today's founder helped build a system to change that. Mark Tanner is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Qwilr - an online platform that allows you to easily create the business documents you need, and send them on to your clients. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Finding the right credit card, or home loan, even the right mobile or internet plan can be a painstaking process. It usually involves looking up a bunch of different providers, getting quotes, looking for online reviews, or asking people you know for recommendations before you’re then ready to make a decision. But today’s founder built a global empire on making that comparison process simple. Fred Schebesta is the CEO and Co-Founder of Finder, an online service that allows you to compare products, get expert advice, and make great decisions. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Cloudflare is on a mission to help build a better internet. The online service helps 26 Million websites prevent denial of service attacks, and speed up their pages, to give users a better experience. Michelle Zatlyn is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Cloudflare and in this episode shares her learnings from building a global business that has a market cap of $6.5 Billion. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Video production has traditionally been an industry that requires significant investment to be done well. However in recent years the game has changed. More and more people have access to high-quality camera equipment, and we've seen social media sites requiring regular video content for brands to stay relevant. But how do you produce more video, at a lower price, while maintaining quality? Mike Pritchett is the CEO and co-founder of Shootsta, a company that set out to solve that problem. Shootsta empowers businesses to film their own video content, and then they handle all the post production to make it look great. In just a few years Shootsta has grown to be a global company that is charting their own path and rewriting the rules. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Design is the backbone of any good digital business, but in the past you needed to know someone with the artistic skills and software knowledge to realise your vision. But with the increasing push to democratise technology it was only inevitable that design would soon become more accessible. In this episode, Cameron Adams the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Canva, shares the story of how democratising design created one of Australia's largest tech unicorns. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Every Instagram profile suffers from a major flaw, you can only add one link for the entire profile. This problem has forced influencers to constantly tell their audience to check the 'link in bio'. It’s clunky and a frustration of many users. Alex and Anthony Zaccaria were running a successful digital agency when they grew frustrated with constantly updating their links, so they came up with a solution. It’s called Linktree and within just a few years has grown organically to almost four million users. Find us on social: linktr.ee/buildingaunicorn Visit our presenting sponsor: lawpath.com.au.

Culture is everything. A great company culture can attract the best staff to come and work for you, and likewise a bad culture can tank your chances of success. So how do you keep tabs on culture when growing your company? Didier Elzinga is the CEO and Founder of Culture Amp - a platform that allows businesses to measure their culture and use that data to improve the experience for their staff. In this episode Didier shares the story of how he went from making movies to running a global company valued at more than a billion dollars.

Building a Unicorn is back for Season Two! New episodes of the show launch on January 30. Join our mailing list at buildingaunicorn.com.

No matter what kind of business you run sooner or later you’ll find yourself having one of those seemingly boring conversations around safety. It may seem boring but having processes around safety is vital for the health and wellbeing of staff, and getting those processes wrong can be costly. Luke Anear is the founder and CEO of SafetyCulture, a company which is helping businesses manage their safety and compliance. In this episode Luke shares the story of how he went from private investigator, to the CEO of a global company valued at more than $440 million.

We live in a global market. It’s no longer good enough for startups to just focus on their local consumers - we have to think globally if we ever want to hit our market potential. And in the process of thinking global you might find yourself needing to send payments around the world. But for a long time those payments might have been made through bank transfer, or even cheque. The problem with these systems is the fees. But there are companies out there trying to solve this problem, and one of those providers is Airwallex - a company making it easier for businesses to process international payments. Lucy Liu is the Co-Founder and COO of Airwallex and shares the story of how Airwallex has managed explosive growth to go from idea to billion dollar company in just three and a bit years.

If you’re a creative person and you’re looking to build a website, find some art for your project, or music to use in a multimedia production - chances are you’ve found yourself looking for templates or small pieces of pre-made works you can use. And in your journey you’ve likely come across a marketplace like ThemeForrest, AudioJungle, or Graphic River and the company behind those marketplaces is Envato. Collis Ta'eed is the CEO and co-founder of Envato and in this episode shares the story of how Envato bootstrapped their way to global success.

When you’re working on any new enterprise, starting a new career, or looking to move up in the world, you might find yourself wondering where you can go to get advice from people who have been there before. Sure, you could start surfing around online and you may come across some great self-help content… but in many situations what you might actually need is a mentor. Someone who can guide you as you go on your journey and provide that much needed advice. Lucy Lloyd is the CEO and Co-Founder of Mentorloop - and in this episode shares the story of Mentorloop and her tips for finding a great mentor.

When you think about the individuals who really shaped humanity over the past few centuries - your mind probably wanders to people like Albert Einstein, Picasso, Henry Ford, or Steve Jobs. These are the people who dared to dream about the future, to create masterpieces of art, or to invent new technologies. But what makes someone successful? Is it just that they had great talent or is it partly the circumstances of their life? Pioneer is on a mission to help discover people with the potential to become great innovators and give them the resources they need to be successful. Daniel Gross is the founder of Pioneer and previously was a partner at Y-Combinator and a former Director at Apple. In this episode, Daniel shares the story of Pioneer and his mission to uncover hidden potential across the globe.

Almost every industry has experienced some disruption thanks to digital technology, and it's the same thing when it comes to wine. Vinomofo is a wine delivery service that has taken the global wine industry by storm with their no BS approach to what was always seen as a pretty snobby industry. Justin Dry is the CEO and Co-Founder of Vinomofo and shares the story behind one of Australia's fastest growing startups.