Scaling

What the sessions actually say

1. Sell what the market is starving for, not what you feel like selling

   Sabri's first businesses failed because he picked the product he was interested in, then went hunting for buyers. Reverse it. Research what is already selling in irrational quantities, what people would crawl across crushed glass to get, then work out what spin or angle you can bring to that. You get the wind in your sails instead of swimming upstream.

   Sabri SubySabri Suby: how to build an offer nobody can resist →

2. Make the offer so strong it keeps you up at night

   Most businesses have resistible offers: buy my thing, and if it doesn't work, oh well. Sabri launched King Kong with a guarantee to get clients onto page one of Google or he worked for free. The test is whether the prospect asks how you can possibly deliver on it. If they don't ask that, it isn't irresistible yet.

   Sabri SubySabri Suby: how to build an offer nobody can resist →

3. Expect a refund rate under 5% on a guarantee

   Founders freeze at the thought of guaranteeing results. Sabri's benchmark: if more than 5% of customers claim on your guarantee, you are not doing a good enough job of delivery. Treat the claim rate as a quality signal, not a reason to avoid guarantees. A compelling offer beats a convincing argument every time.

   Sabri SubySabri Suby: how to build an offer nobody can resist →

4. Fund the first product from a services business, not a raise

   Frank's signage and brochure business gave him paying customers, gross margin and intimate knowledge of the industry's pain points before he built any software. He recommends the same reverse order: pick the sector, run a services business that needs no capital, then build tech for the inefficiencies you have personally suffered. He cites Relume (now 50,000 users) which started as a website agency before building its design and component library.

   Frank GreeffBootstrapping to a $180M sale to Domain →

5. Hold off a funding round until you have around 10 paying customers

   Frank's view is that each stage of funding trades a disproportionately larger slice of equity for a smaller cheque. His advice to a founder self-funding a SaaS product out of her marketing agency was that if you can prove product-market fit with roughly 10 paying customers first, you buy yourself a significantly better valuation. He points to Antler's model of 10% of a company for $170,000, valuing it at $1.7 million, as an example of how cheap early equity is.

   Frank GreeffBootstrapping to a $180M sale to Domain →

6. Create optionality before any partnership or merger negotiation

   Frank negotiated a 50/50 merger with a company doing $37 million revenue when Realbase was doing $4.5 million, because he genuinely did not need the deal. He warns against putting all your eggs in one basket, citing a founder who spent 2.5 years in due diligence on a single $350 million buyer and had it fall through. Even if the first co-founder or investor turns out to be the right one, tease out other options first so your confidence is real and felt.

   Frank GreeffBootstrapping to a $180M sale to Domain →

7. Balance speed with a pause before you build

   Frank credits compressing the gap between idea and execution for Realbase's growth, but says they took it too far. They launched the Realbase tech product and rebuilt it three times inside a year because they had chased the wrong customer and wrong product market fit. At Kinzo he is spending 10 to 20 times more time on user experience and design than he did at Realbase, deliberately celebrating thinking time while still moving at pace.

   Frank GreeffFrank Greeff: Lessons From a $180M Exit, Applied Again →

8. Run a three-month trial before you hand over equity

   Frank's rule for any co-founder or joint venture: if you have never worked together, do not sign. Instead set up a three-month window where you work together exactly as you would as equity partners, with clearly agreed levers on both sides for either party to walk away. Everything looks like blue skies on paper. The realities of business are what break partnerships, and he has seen VC-backed businesses go insolvent purely because two founders split.

   Frank GreeffFrank Greeff: Lessons From a $180M Exit, Applied Again →

9. Treat a shareholder as forever, because at exit they hold the pen

   At sale, Realbase had a shareholder who had not worked in the business for four years but still owned 7 percent. The team chased that person for six weeks with no reply, and could not complete the sale until they signed. Apply the same seriousness to equity given to employees. No handshake deals, and as Daniel Hakim's lawyer put it, contracts are not for when things are going well, they are for when things go bad.

   Frank GreeffFrank Greeff: Lessons From a $180M Exit, Applied Again →

10. Test demand with a giveaway landing page and $10 a day in ads

    Before Hero Packaging launched, Anaita built a landing page offering a free compostable mailer and ran a Google ad to it at roughly $10 a day, then counted signups. Do the same for every new product: get the smallest quantity possible, pre-sell it, and only commit to inventory once signups prove demand exists.

    Anaita SarkarAnaita Sarkar on testing demand, margins and founder content →

11. If you will not spend money on ads, you must spend time

    Anaita's rule is time or money, ideally both. No ad budget means content every day, markets, events, blog posts, SEO and being in rooms with the right people. Saying you have no ad budget and also hate making content is, in her words, the dumbest thing she has heard, because a business needs one of the two inputs.

    Anaita SarkarAnaita Sarkar on testing demand, margins and founder content →

12. Build one gathering place for customers, even if two people show up

    A Facebook group, a broadcast channel, a Saturday running club. Anaita points to activewear brands running weekly run clubs: even at two attendees it gives you content, face time with customers and a reason for people to feel they would miss out if they left. She argues community is the difference between a brand with longevity and one with none, because every business has direct and indirect competition.

    Anaita SarkarAnaita Sarkar on testing demand, margins and founder content →

13. Build a referral engine with businesses that serve your customer but do not compete

    With no ad budget, Raso cold called web design companies, creative agencies and PR firms because they had clients who needed SEO but could not deliver it. He paid them a commission once the deal was signed, not on the lead. That channel grew the agency for years before it ever spent on paid ads. Ask who already sells to your customer and cannot do what you do, then offer them either a commission or a lead swap.

    Andrew RasoFrom $500 to 200 staff: how Andrew Raso scaled an agency →

14. Make a retainer or membership your first business model, at any price point

    Raso says the first thing any owner should build is recurring revenue, whether that is $50, $100, $1,000 or $2,000 a month. Predictable monthly income is what gives you the confidence to budget and, more importantly, the confidence to hire. Without it you stay stuck doing everything yourself. He points to e-commerce brands like pet food that moved customers onto subscription as the ones now winning.

    Andrew RasoFrom $500 to 200 staff: how Andrew Raso scaled an agency →

15. Test unglamorous cash flow mechanics like gift vouchers

    Raso cites his friend Babak Moini of Laser Clinics, who made most of his early money by putting laser clients on memberships. Selling gift vouchers turned out to be a second cash engine, because a large share of vouchers were never redeemed. The point is to actually trial these mechanics in your own business rather than assume they will not apply.

    Andrew RasoFrom $500 to 200 staff: how Andrew Raso scaled an agency →

16. Guess the buyer's email address instead of networking your way in

    Annabel had zero retail contacts. She searched terms like "Priceline beauty buyer" on Google and LinkedIn to get names and titles, worked out the company's email format, then guessed. An out of office reply confirms the format is right. One day she sent 300 emails and the Priceline buyer replied almost immediately. Her framing: path of least resistance, and if they don't reply there are 365 days in the year, so email again until you catch them on a good day.

    Annabel HayAnnabel Hay: from nightclub idea to Priceline and CVS shelves →

17. Pay for third-party QA before a batch leaves the factory

    Clutch's first 5,000 units were sealed by a machine running too hot, which pierced the tube tops and caused leaks in transit. Annabel had to issue mass refunds on nearly all of the $160,000 made at launch, then pay again for new manufacturing and a new manufacturer. She had never heard of third-party QA inspectors who squeeze and check every tube before dispatch. Build a pre-launch checklist and don't let the excitement of holding a finished product make you ignore red flags.

    Annabel HayAnnabel Hay: from nightclub idea to Priceline and CVS shelves →

18. Budget your patent in stages across the 12-month window

    Annabel paid roughly $30,000 to $40,000 to lodge with the International Patent Office. About 12 to 18 months later the office confirmed patentability, which opened a 12-month window to lodge in each individual country. She ranked countries into priority one to four and spread the filings across quarters to match cash flow rather than paying around $300,000 at once. Miss a country in that window and you start the whole process again.

    Annabel HayAnnabel Hay: from nightclub idea to Priceline and CVS shelves →

19. Validate with free ebooks, then charge for the next one

    Chontel started NuForm's concept testing with free ebooks posted to her community and a comment-to-claim mechanic. Free downloads show genuine interest and grow the algorithm. Then she charged for ebooks, which showed what people actually placed value on. It costs nothing to run and it is still effective.

    Chontel DuncanChontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →

20. Use newsletter behaviour as a live demand signal

    Track lifetime value on your email list, not just list size. Chontel watches how long subscribers stay, whether the response rate changes and whether people are still opening at all. When she pivots the content, subscriber and open behaviour tells her which one or two areas to feed and nourish.

    Chontel DuncanChontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →

21. Sell a physical product to learn what you are not

    Chontel dabbled in apparel and a resistance band for at-home training around the start of COVID. It sold well, but it confirmed the business was best at training programs and nutrition. A side venture either pivots you in the right direction or signals what to stay focused on. Both answers are useful.

    Chontel DuncanChontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →

22. Set a daily revenue number before anyone quits their job

    Don did not wait for a million dollar plan. The first milestone was a consistent $500 a day, enough to cover rent, before he left his job. Matilda's trigger was ten times that, roughly $5K a day, before she left recruitment. Pick a daily number tied to a real bill, hit it consistently, then make the leap.

    Don RobertsonSTAX: 10 Years of Building a Cult Activewear Brand →

23. Hire for demand, not for the org chart you want

    STAX's first meaningful hire was customer service, not marketing or brand. They had oversold a collection and were drowning in around 800 emails overnight on Outlook with no ticketing system. Matilda was answering them at 3am and giving things away for free. Hire into the place that is currently breaking, and hire someone who loves the brand but is not so emotionally invested that every angry email ruins them.

    Don RobertsonSTAX: 10 Years of Building a Cult Activewear Brand →

24. If you have to negotiate with yourself to hire someone, it is a no

    Don's rule after several bad hires. Matilda adds that every time they second-guessed their gut and hired anyway, it was a disaster. She also warns against treating interviews as a PR pitch: they used to run a PowerPoint on why you should work at STAX, and people arrived expecting the Instagram personalities rather than bosses. Make interviews an even exchange so both sides can test the fit honestly.

    Don RobertsonSTAX: 10 Years of Building a Cult Activewear Brand →

25. Screen every product against a five-point criteria list

    Dylan asks: does it solve a problem or is it genuinely unique, is there demand, is it saturated, can content be easily created and shipped to creators, and are competitor reviews positive. The final test is whether you can add products later to lift average order value and lifetime value. A product does not have to solve a problem, the viral light-up ducky lamps were just a unique take on something people already owned.

    Dylan MullanDylan Mullan: product selection and organic content for ecom →

26. Use Page Transparency and Google Trends to prove demand

    Dylan does not chase being first to market, he looks for recent competitors already selling. Go to a competitor's Facebook page, click Page Transparency, and if an ad has been running over three months it is a strong signal it is profitable, because nobody leaves a losing ad on. Cross-check with Google Trends (above 50 or clearly trending up) and main keyword volume over 10,000.

    Dylan MullanDylan Mullan: product selection and organic content for ecom →

27. Two quick tests for whether a product is already saturated

    First, check how long the competitors have existed. If a brand and its hero product have been around more than three years, the product is likely saturated. Second, walk into Big W, Kmart or Officeworks. If they have a home brand version on shelf, Dylan guarantees it is saturated.

    Dylan MullanDylan Mullan: product selection and organic content for ecom →

28. Test demand with a Photoshopped product and a $20 a day Google ad

    Anaita Sarkar validated Hero Packaging before manufacturing anything. She built a single landing page with a Photoshopped image of a compostable mailer, three fields (shipping address, email, business name) and the offer "do you want a free compostable mailer?". She spent $20 a day on Google Ads targeting searches like sustainable packaging, compostable packaging, eco packaging and green packaging. She hoped for 20 to 30 signups and got 1,000 in seven days.

    Dylan MullanCreating and selling products customers can't get enough of →

29. Free samples only count as proof when people come back and pay

    Sarkar's husband pushed back on the 1,000 signups because free is not a business. The samples cost about $7 each, so it was a real spend. She waited one to two months to see how many of those 1,000 would place a paid order. About 70 per cent did, giving her 700 paying customers and genuine evidence of demand.

    Dylan MullanCreating and selling products customers can't get enough of →

30. Take a service people already pay for and turn it into a DIY product

    Dylan Mullan modelled Happy Skin Co on HiSmile and Bondi Sands, both of which took something you used to book in for (dentist teeth whitening, spray tan) and made it a home product. Laser hair removal fitted the same pattern: expensive, inconvenient, painful, and strangers in your business. The technology already existed with Braun and Philips on the bottom shelf of shaver shops, but nobody had marketed it on social media.

    Dylan MullanCreating and selling products customers can't get enough of →

31. Test demand with a domain, a blog post and a PayPal link

    Before Finder scaled, Fred bought findlostsuper.com.au, put up a single blog post asking people to send $50 and their details, and waited. Money landed in his account before he had built anything, so he manually found people's super afterwards, sometimes three weeks late, and nobody complained. That was his proof of product market fit. Run the cheapest possible version that takes real money from a real customer before you build.

    Fred SchebestaFred Schebesta: cheap tests, boring categories, big content →

32. Define the right path as the one you can repeat, not the easiest one

    Fred's test for a good business model is whether it lets you do the same thing over and over. At Finder that meant publishing content, so he tracked pages published on a whiteboard and the team clapped for each other. He points to burger chains cutting chips the same way every morning and just pumping out cash. If a new direction cannot be repeated at lower cost and higher output, it will not scale.

    Fred SchebestaFred Schebesta: cheap tests, boring categories, big content →

33. Let the vision move as the model proves itself

    Finder's vision changed four times: help people with credit card content, compare everything like Amazon's everything store, help people make great decisions, then help people build wealth. Each shift only happened after the previous model worked. The wealth shift, driven by people going into stocks and crypto in 2020 and 2021, changed the org structure and the PR messaging from saving money to deploying money.

    Fred SchebestaFred Schebesta: cheap tests, boring categories, big content →

34. Write the one-sentence version of your product before anything else

    Gael's first step is a piece of paper: what does the idea do, who is the audience, what is the target market, what is the business model. Then compress it to a single sentence, for example "a solution for business owners and entrepreneurs that lets them network and meet each other". That sentence becomes the test every feature has to pass.

    Gael DonnayHow to build an MVP without blowing your budget →

35. Work backwards from your feature wish list to find the MVP

    Take every feature you have imagined and remove them one at a time. For each, ask whether the solution still does what it needs to do and still delivers the value it has to deliver. What survives is the lean MVP. Gael quotes Steve Jobs: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

    Gael DonnayHow to build an MVP without blowing your budget →

36. Sort features with the MoSCoW matrix and only build the must-haves

    When scope gets hard and budget is fixed, split every feature into must have, should have, could have and won't have. Only the must-haves belong in the MVP. Could-haves come later if budget allows, and Gael's view is that they generally should not. Be honest in the sorting, and expect your tech partner to push back.

    Gael DonnayHow to build an MVP without blowing your budget →

37. Hire a videographer before an assistant

    Jack's first hire at Henderson was a videographer, not an associate, PA or EA. He started with an iPhone and a camera on a tripod with his partner filming, editing on a laptop, which he found too slow to do volume. Bringing media in-house early meant marketing sat at the top of the funnel from day one, even when he had 600 followers and people thought walking around with a videographer was strange.

    Jack HendersonJack Henderson: content, hiring and buying your first property →

38. Separate reach content from converting content

    Jack's best performing posts are controversial or mass-market topics (a post on the new $3 million super contribution cap did very well) but they do not book calls. The content that converts is specific to his niche of small business owners and high-paid PAYG earners, and it usually gets fewer views. Track the direct correlation between content and booked calls, and do not let a social media hire optimise purely for views.

    Jack HendersonJack Henderson: content, hiring and buying your first property →

39. Post two to three times a day across three platforms

    Jack aims for one post in the morning, one at midday and one at night. Instagram and TikTok take the same short form content, so one asset covers both. LinkedIn gets written content, where he says organic reach with no connections or followers is unusually strong. A copywriter reviews his best performing video content and writes LinkedIn copy off the back of it, which he sometimes edits before posting.

    Jack HendersonJack Henderson: content, hiring and buying your first property →

40. Improve an existing daily habit rather than replace one

    Jaryd's starting question was "what's going to replace coffee?" He changed it to "why replace it when we can just improve it?" Coffee is the most widely consumed beverage behind water and people do not skip their morning cup, so adding vitamins and minerals means the customer gets the upside without changing behaviour. If you want a big brand, pick something already inside a daily habit or routine.

    Jaryd TerkelsenBefore You Speak Coffee: from one SKU to 1,500 retailers →

41. Launch with one product and one audience

    Before You Speak launched with a single performance coffee, still its number one seller today. With limited resources you are the marketing team and the customer service team, so pushing multiple messages to multiple audiences makes your own life harder. Get one product moving, then use customer feedback to guide what you build next. The unsweetened range and other SKUs came later.

    Jaryd TerkelsenBefore You Speak Coffee: from one SKU to 1,500 retailers →

42. Do not order 10,000 units on your first purchase order

    Their initial PO was 10,000 boxes. It took roughly nine months to sell through, which Jaryd calls not the smartest move on cash flow. Size your first order against a realistic sell-through window, not against your ambition, because that inventory is cash you cannot spend on acquiring customers.

    Jaryd TerkelsenBefore You Speak Coffee: from one SKU to 1,500 retailers →

43. Stop single-shot prompting. Ground the model with project files.

    Cabral says a single prompt gives generic output that everyone can spot. Upload files into ChatGPT (or Claude) and use the projects feature so the same reference material is pulled into every response going forward. Add custom instructions for tone, target audience and Australian English spelling, because American Zs in your copy are an obvious tell that it came from ChatGPT.

    Jeremy CabralJeremy Cabral: AI Agents, SEO and Growth Engines →

44. Ask the tool to write your prompt template first

    Instead of guessing at structure, tell the model your goal: you want a project file that informs all future responses, so give me a prompt template to fill out. Fill it in, load it back into the project, and the LLM has structured knowledge it can reference easily. Unstructured files take more effort for the tool to use.

    Jeremy CabralJeremy Cabral: AI Agents, SEO and Growth Engines →

45. Shop between models for each task

    Cabral used Gemini to write the prompt for Leonardo AI (the image tool Canva acquired), then ran that prompt through ChatGPT because the result was better. Gemini produced the best prompt structure and the most repeatable image outputs. Models change constantly, so test the dropdown rather than defaulting to one tool.

    Jeremy CabralJeremy Cabral: AI Agents, SEO and Growth Engines →

46. Build the four foundations before you touch an AI tool

    Jeremy asked the room to commit to four things: one central spreadsheet holding every project (a solopreneur can start there), all documents in one editable place rather than email as the source of truth, transcribing every meeting after asking permission, and hiring a virtual assistant. The VA matters even in a tiny business because it forces you to break work into repeatable, delegable processes, which is exactly what an AI agent needs later.

    Jeremy CabralBuilding AI systems that actually scale your business →

47. Ask ChatGPT to write the prompt you then paste into a fresh chat

    Most people write a one-line zero-shot prompt and get a generic answer customers can spot immediately. Instead, ask ChatGPT to act as a prompt engineer for your task, take the prompt it produces and paste it into a new chat. Jeremy called this the single tip to take away if you take nothing else.

    Jeremy CabralBuilding AI systems that actually scale your business →

48. Load a project file with your pricing, products and FAQs

    Anything you repeatedly refer to when answering clients or drafting documents should live in a ChatGPT project file, whether or not it is public on your website. That context stops the model producing generic output. For his marathon Jeremy loaded roughly ten documents into a project and prompted ChatGPT 3,049 times across preparation and the race itself, with the quality of answers coming from the stored context.

    Jeremy CabralBuilding AI systems that actually scale your business →

49. Treat any ChatGPT draft as a 1 out of 10 and build from there

    Jeremy's point is that AI output is probably better than most of us could write, which is exactly the problem. If it takes one prompt, everyone has it. Ask what would make the same page a 10 out of 10, then do that work. Never publish straight from ChatGPT to the internet.

    Jeremy CabralFinder's Jeremy Cabral on SEO, AI search and Reddit →

50. Print the page and read it aloud before you publish

    A trick Finder used for years. Print out the content and read it out loud. If the words are embarrassing to say, the content is crappy. On screen you skim and skip sentences, so you miss the fluff. Then hand it to someone and ask directly whether it is useful.

    Jeremy CabralFinder's Jeremy Cabral on SEO, AI search and Reddit →

51. Build 6 to 8 guides as a cluster before moving to the next topic

    Do not write whatever interests you. Pick one topic, map the 6 to 8 guides your customer actually needs, link them to each other and keep overlap between them low. Each guide answers a distinct intent. The cluster has to be logical for your customers and make sense to Google.

    Jeremy CabralFinder's Jeremy Cabral on SEO, AI search and Reddit →

52. Split your week into $10 and $100 an hour tasks on paper

    Jess grabs a sheet of paper and draws a line down the middle, writing $10 in one column and $100 in the other. Every task she does across the day and week gets handwritten into one column. Recording a session where no one else can stand in is a $100 task. Sitting on her phone drafting replies to client emails is a $10 task her team can do.

    Jess WhatmanHow to hire, brief and keep a great virtual assistant →

53. Benchmark against your hourly rate before you touch any task

    If your hourly rate is $250, do not do work you could pay someone else less than $250 an hour to do. Jess names the usual suspects: social media management, designing tiles in Canva, chasing invoices, data entry. Most of it can be done for $10 to $15 an hour by someone else.

    Jess WhatmanHow to hire, brief and keep a great virtual assistant →

54. Build a procedure in five minutes with Loom

    When you hit a task you hate, open Loom (free plan, around 100 videos of up to five minutes) and press record on your screen while you do the task, talking as you go. One more click turns the recording into a written procedure. Your VA gets both the video of you explaining it and the written steps, and you have spent five minutes.

    Jess WhatmanHow to hire, brief and keep a great virtual assistant →

55. Fix the 5 Ps before you optimise a single ad dollar

    Jo argues small budgets get wasted because founders jump straight to ROI optimisation without the fundamentals. Start with proposition (what do you actually stand for, in the way The Iconic settled on "a better way for people to shop") and people (exactly who you are for). Getting those right is what drives the efficiency of every dollar afterwards. Trying to be all things to all people dilutes the brand, even on a large FMCG budget.

    Jo RobinsonThe Iconic's CMO on getting off the paid performance drug →

56. Watch for churn as the signal that paid performance has topped out

    The Iconic counts a customer as churned if they do not purchase again within 12 months of acquisition. Jo found they were spending heavily on paid performance, acquiring customers once, then losing them, which she describes as literally buying customers. Track first-purchase-to-repeat over a 12 month window. If acquisition spend keeps rising while repeat rate stays flat, more paid budget will not fix it.

    Jo RobinsonThe Iconic's CMO on getting off the paid performance drug →

57. Use unprompted brand awareness as the metric that justifies brand spend

    The Iconic's unprompted awareness was declining quarter on quarter because they had done nothing beyond Google, banner advertising and a little SEO. Jo used that decline as the board argument for shifting spend to the top of the funnel. She warned it could dent short-term sales and would take six months to a year to show. Awareness has since moved up 4 basis points against competitors who outspend them.

    Jo RobinsonThe Iconic's CMO on getting off the paid performance drug →

58. Plan backwards from 3 years, then 12 months, then 90 days

    Start by describing what great looks like 3 years out across business metrics, brand positioning, market share, consumer perception, assortment and channels. Pull that back to 12 months with specific milestones you must hit to have conviction the 3-year picture is on track. Then pull back to 90 days and name the projects, the outcomes, the owner for each, how success is measured, and how it flows into team KPIs and incentives. Josh's point: the 3-year layer is your job, the 90-day layer is what you delegate.

    Josh SparksFrom operator to CEO: strategy, teams and tactical autonomy →

59. Aim for three conditions: strategic clarity, team alignment, tactical autonomy

    Strategic clarity means everyone knows what you are moving towards. Team alignment includes investors and board, not just staff. Tactical autonomy means the team runs the business day to day. Josh's line for the shift: you lead, coach and hold accountable the leadership team, and the team manages the business.

    Josh SparksFrom operator to CEO: strategy, teams and tactical autonomy →

60. Destroy your old idea of leadership before you can grow into the new one

    Josh uses the Buddhist cycle of growth, maintenance and destruction. When you are maintaining and want growth again, something must be destroyed first. For most founder CEOs the thing to destroy is a love of micromanagement and the fear that the team is not ready. The usual excuses (the team's not ready, I'm the only one who knows the detail, the systems aren't mature) are all solvable problems expressing the same underlying fear.

    Josh SparksFrom operator to CEO: strategy, teams and tactical autonomy →

61. Build up to your promise, do not start with it

    Sparks runs a brand pyramid workshop that takes roughly a day or two, and it works bottom up. Start with the central organising idea (your reason for being), then points of parity (the rational hygiene factors that get you on the field but never win the game), then points of difference (both rational and emotional), then your value set, then a single archetype, and only then the promise. Asked cold, most founders describe their offer ("we sell supplements", "we own hair salons") rather than a promise.

    Joshua SparksBuilding a brand promise that lifts company value →

62. Write the promise as two words you can build product against

    For MJ Bale the promise landed on "rugged elegance". The tailoring and knitwear could have drifted towards a soft English or Ralph Lauren feel, but founder Matt Jensen is the son of a sheep farmer with a farm in Barrow, so a tougher, functional element was authentic to him. Find the phrase that sits at the intersection of the category and the founder's real story, then make product decisions against it.

    Joshua SparksBuilding a brand promise that lifts company value →

63. Audit every touchpoint against the promise

    Once the promise is set, break it down across product, in-store experience, online experience, wholesale accounts, third party e-com platforms, all marketing, ambassadors and influencers. Every point where you touch the consumer either honours the promise or breaks it. Inconsistency is what fractures trust fastest, in brands the same as in personal relationships.

    Joshua SparksBuilding a brand promise that lifts company value →

64. Hire to take jobs off the founder, not to fill a job title

    Kirstin-Lee pushes back on the standard advice to hire a head of marketing or an e-commerce manager. Instead, open your calendar and ask what is clogging your focus, then employ someone to take those specific jobs away. Her reasoning: the most valuable person in the business is the founder, and buying back headspace is what lets the vision grow.

    Kirstin-Lee KeysersKivari's founder on delegation, brand filters and saying no →

65. Use the 80 per cent rule to force yourself to delegate

    The rule she keeps coming back to: if someone else can do the job at 80 per cent, that beats it being done at 100 per cent by you. She still catches herself wanting to jump back in and repeats the rule to stop herself. It works as a live filter every time you are tempted to take a task back off a team member.

    Kirstin-Lee KeysersKivari's founder on delegation, brand filters and saying no →

66. Audit your week on paper, then circle the two or three jobs only you can do

    Write down everything you did this week, including gym, cleaning the house and the school drop-off, not just work tasks. Then circle the jobs only the founder can do. Kirstin-Lee guarantees there will be two or three. Everything else gets delegated, systemised or deleted, and she says deleting is her favourite of the three.

    Kirstin-Lee KeysersKivari's founder on delegation, brand filters and saying no →

67. Compress your two to five year plan when a shock hits

    When COVID arrived, Kristy had just launched and already had the infrastructure in place. Rather than freeze, the team executed everything in their two to five year plan inside two weeks so they could handle the volume, reaching 50,000 doughnuts a week. Her mentor's line when she thought she had lost everything: "it's not an adventure if you know where you're going, so get on with it."

    Kristy ValentineBuilding Dr. Dough and preparing a business for sale →

68. Hire a real accountant, not a cowboy, from the start

    Kristy is blunt that finances must be in order from day one: compliant, up to date, ATO happy, payroll never skipping a beat. Her point is that this is not something you can switch on later when you want to sell. An acquirer turns over every stone in due diligence, and if something is not right you will not even be considered.

    Kristy ValentineBuilding Dr. Dough and preparing a business for sale →

69. Pay for a CFO earlier than feels sensible

    A doughnut shop with a CFO sounds absurd, and Kristy admits it was very expensive and a heavy line on the P&L. She invested anyway. Without it, Dr. Dough would not have been in a position years later to be considered for acquisition at all.

    Kristy ValentineBuilding Dr. Dough and preparing a business for sale →

70. Find the actual constraint before you buy more leads

    Laura's example: you feel short on clients and immediately decide you need more leads. Break the customer journey and funnel into numbers first. You may find that lifting conversion by 10 percent puts you exactly on your goal, so the fix is conversion, not traffic. Solving the wrong problem keeps you busy without moving the needle.

    Laura HigginsLaura Higgins: sell by serving, and find your real constraint →

71. Make the sales call about them, not you

    Laura's rule: when you make it about you, you are selling. When you make it about them, you are serving. She opens with "what is the big problem for you right now, how can I help?" Her analogy is someone struggling with grocery bags and a baby on their hip. Offering to carry a bag is not pushy, it is what a decent human does.

    Laura HigginsLaura Higgins: sell by serving, and find your real constraint →

72. Aim for a 6 or 8 out of 10 close rate, not 10

    Laura says a 100 percent conversion rate means you are either not niche enough or not expensive enough. She wants people to push back on price and to occasionally say it is not the right fit. She also tells prospects when she is not the right fit for them. Rejection is part of the process, not a signal you are bad at selling.

    Laura HigginsLaura Higgins: sell by serving, and find your real constraint →

73. Audit the fuel source before you audit the strategy

    Lewis splits every action into two drivers: inspiration (pulled towards something, grateful, aligned) or desperation ("I'm not enough, I need this to be enough"). No behaviour is inherently unhealthy, the reason behind it is what matters. Before committing to a new offer, hire or raise, ask which of the two is driving it. If it is the second, the number you hit will not fix the feeling.

    Lewis HuckstepLewis Huckstep: purpose, values and the founder ego trap →

74. Build the personal plan in this order: purpose, mission, vision, values, outcomes

    Lewis works clients through a fixed sequence. Purpose is an expression of your greatest core wound and is not measurable (his is to heal and raise consciousness). Mission is the measurable version of it ("coach 100 million people to live a life that inspires them"). Vision is what life looks like once you hit the mission. Values are the areas of life that fulfil you. Outcomes are the master plan: five to ten year mission, then three year, two year, twelve month, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily goals.

    Lewis HuckstepLewis Huckstep: purpose, values and the founder ego trap →

75. Find your purpose by asking what you needed at your lowest

    Lewis says your purpose comes from your core wound. His father punched holes in walls and physically hurt his family, so he felt unsafe and hurt, and Asperger's meant he felt misunderstood and struggled to make friends. That produced a mission to heal others and help them understand themselves. Sit with the question "where was I at my lowest, and what did I need back then?" then ask how you give that back. Lewis says you get tears of inspiration when you land on the real one.

    Lewis HuckstepLewis Huckstep: purpose, values and the founder ego trap →

76. Sell the idea before you build it, then underwrite the build

    Lisa calls it selling vaporware. She comes up with a concept, pre-sells it, and only creates it once the market has shown it will eat it up. She has done this with all 40 of her books and with the magazine itself, which gave her both confidence and speed to market. She has never borrowed money for a business in 23 years.

    Lisa MessengerLisa Messenger: pre-sell it, value stack it, then build it →

77. Value stack one big sponsor instead of selling small ads

    The industry model was a flat ad on a page for $10,000. The first issue of Collective Hub cost $350,000, so she would have needed 35 pre-sold ads just to break even. Instead she asked CommBank's CMO Andy Lark for $200,000 and stacked physical copies, advertorial, editorial, speaking and written articles on top, roughly $600,000 of value for his $200,000. It was sponsorship and advertising dollars, not a loan.

    Lisa MessengerLisa Messenger: pre-sell it, value stack it, then build it →

78. Make 79 calls and stalk the one person who fits your thesis

    Lisa made around 79 phone calls before she got to Andy Lark, chosen because people told her he loved entrepreneurs and still liked print. She chased him for about three months through multiple angles, then sent a tweet at 10pm and got a 2pm meeting the next day. She almost did not go. Go to the knife-edge meeting.

    Lisa MessengerLisa Messenger: pre-sell it, value stack it, then build it →

79. Split leverage into three buckets, not just borrowed money

    Most people hear leverage and think financial leverage, using someone else's money to buy assets. Lloyd defines it as capital leverage, people leverage and systems leverage. Long hours happen when a founder has none of the last two. Audit which of the three you actually have before blaming your workload.

    Lloyd James RossDelegate to systems and people, then scale on partnerships →

80. Write the can't, don't want to, shouldn't list

    Lloyd's delegation filter is three columns: things you can't do, things you don't want to do, and things you shouldn't do. The shouldn't column is anything priced below your average hourly rate as an entrepreneur. Those go first. He points to Dan Sullivan's Who Not How: delegate everything but your genius.

    Lloyd James RossDelegate to systems and people, then scale on partnerships →

81. Start delegating outside the business before you touch the business

    The cheapest first step is getting someone else to wash your car and clean your house. Low-value personal tasks are the training wheels for delegation. If you never build the habit, Lloyd says you end up working 60 to 70 hours a week for the same money you would have earned in a 9-to-5.

    Lloyd James RossDelegate to systems and people, then scale on partnerships →

82. Automate invoices into Xero with a Claude Code routine

    Luke's exact method: open Claude Code (not Chat, not Coworker), ask it to connect Xero via the MCP connector, then say "set up a routine task to pull any invoices that come through my emails and put them into Xero as a bill". Anthropic and Xero have an official connection. Expect about half an hour of configuring. Luke runs his routine three times a day.

    Luke HekaLuke Heka: simple AI systems that actually stick →

83. Understand routines versus managed agents before you build

    Inside Claude there are two options. Routines run on your Claude subscription, so nothing extra gets charged. Managed Agents run on an API key, which means a credit card and a charge every time you use it. For simple recurring jobs like email sorting or invoice capture, Luke uses routines so the cost stays inside the plan.

    Luke HekaLuke Heka: simple AI systems that actually stick →

84. Run the 60-40 split across every role before you automate

    Luke's audit: for each team member, work out what share of their week is boring repetitive work AI can do (roughly 60 per cent) and what share actually turns the business and makes money (roughly 40 per cent). Automate the 60. Then retrain the person on what the 40 now looks like. He learned this the hard way with a Mount Isa real estate office, where inspections were being booked automatically but nobody had told the team to just check the calendar.

    Luke HekaLuke Heka: simple AI systems that actually stick →

85. Re-cut your cost base to today's revenue, not last year's

    Bouris says the first move in a downturn is the one thing you control: costs. Your cost structure was geared to revenue from six months ago, so if you are seeing lower revenue, delayed contracts or postponed projects, re-gear costs to the revenue you have now. Cut the cloth to suit.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris: Staying Calm, Clear and Commercial in a Downturn →

86. Work out your cash runway on flat revenue and a fixed cost floor

    Asked how to tell if a business will survive, Bouris pointed to burn rate. Assume today's revenue line does not improve, then work out which costs you genuinely cannot reduce. If that maths leaves you with less than six months, and you have no savings, no bank borrowing and no investor, that is the point to consider closing the books for a while or taking a job rather than burning to zero.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris: Staying Calm, Clear and Commercial in a Downturn →

87. Get your economic data from the ABS, not the papers

    Bouris says ignore politicians and go to abs.gov.au yourself, any hour of any day. The three numbers that matter are unemployment, GDP growth and inflation. He notes normal GDP growth should sit around 2.75 to 3.5 per cent per annum, and Australia is sitting just above zero, with a per capita recession meaning living standards are falling.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris: Staying Calm, Clear and Commercial in a Downturn →

88. Run a cost refresh every couple of years, not just in a crisis

    Bouris says if you assume revenue stays flat, the first lever is cost, not sales. In March 2020 he cut overheads at his lending business by 30%. When volumes then doubled, he discovered he had been carrying people and space he never needed. He recommends a full cost refreshment every couple of years because of what it exposes about where you spend without need.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on Costs, Cash Flow and Pricing for 2026 →

89. Cut the space you are not using and keep the saving

    Bouris gave up one of his two floors in Chifley Tower during COVID and saved a million dollars a year. He never took the second floor back. For the month of January the business wrote $3.5 billion, against roughly $1.8 billion pre-COVID with two floors and 30% more staff. Test whether your fixed footprint is sised for the business you had or the one you have.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on Costs, Cash Flow and Pricing for 2026 →

90. Be direction ready: cut costs now, build capacity for the upswing

    Bouris expects rate rises to flatten the economy, then the Reserve Bank to reverse and stimulate again. His instruction is to control costs today while getting the business ready for revenue to turn up. That means more innovation, AI in the business, building inventories, or more efficient delivery systems, so you can take the opportunity when it arrives rather than starting from scratch.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on Costs, Cash Flow and Pricing for 2026 →

91. Run the three steps: awareness, understanding, reconditioning

    Morgan's model for changing any behaviour has three parts. First, notice the pattern as it happens ("I'm doing that self-worth thing again"). Second, trace where the story came from, because most 40-year-olds are being run by a decision a 7-year-old made. Third, recondition through repetition, like the gym, doing the scary thing again and again until your brain has evidence you are someone who acts anyway.

    Morgan NelsonMorgan Nelson on fear, self-worth and how to actually sell →

92. Peg your self-worth to the action, not the outcome

    You cannot control whether a prospect says yes, so never make that the measure of you. Morgan puts his self-worth on the behaviour he can control: pushing through the fear and asking. If you close 20 percent and you need four sales this week, do not chase a better close rate, book 20 conversations instead. Conversions usually lift anyway because you feel better about yourself.

    Morgan NelsonMorgan Nelson on fear, self-worth and how to actually sell →

93. Test your self-worth by asking a stranger to buy you something

    In Morgan's Mind Money program he sends people out at lunch to ask a stranger to buy them something. Some come back thrilled with a free dinner. One person cried after asking for a free cup of water at Hungry Jack's. His point: if you cannot ask a stranger for a cup of water, you will not ask a client for $5,000. Use the exercise as a mirror on what you believe you deserve.

    Morgan NelsonMorgan Nelson on fear, self-worth and how to actually sell →

94. Gift your entire first production run before you spend on ads

    Priscilla gave away all 500 units of Bangn Body's first shipment to anyone who would take it, and did not run Meta or Facebook ads for over 12 months. The logic was recognition: by the time ads ran, she wanted roughly one in ten people to already know the brand so the ad worked harder. Naked Sundays did the same, running no paid media for the first two or three years and relying on seeding, press and events.

    Priscilla HajiantoniThree beauty and wellness founders on getting product into hands →

95. Test whether a manufacturer will say yes by calling until number 13

    Samantha Brett had no manufacturing background. She Googled every sunscreen manufacturer and called them all, working on the assumption that twelve nos get you to a yes on the thirteenth. She then repeated the process with bottle manufacturers across China, India and elsewhere until she found one that could build a bespoke mister that would not spray into eyes. That bottle is now the reason the product ranks number one on Amazon US and Ulta US.

    Priscilla HajiantoniThree beauty and wellness founders on getting product into hands →

96. Recognise that a media profile does not convert to sales

    Sally Obermeder is blunt that a following does not mean add to cart. People already have a box they put you in, and if you push a product at them they get annoyed. Because SWIISH started with smoothies rather than a product, the habit was show and share rather than sell, and that removed the selling pressure from the content. Consistency over the long game builds the tribe, not the profile.

    Priscilla HajiantoniThree beauty and wellness founders on getting product into hands →

97. Use a future regret test to make the big, scary calls

    Sarah calls it her future regret management matrix. When Urban Outfitters placed an order she could only fill by leaving her legal job to pack for roughly seven days straight, she asked what 80-year-old her and 10-years-from-now her would regret more. Trying and failing while first to market, or staying safe and watching the window close. Law would still be there a year later, the retailer would not.

    Sarah DavidsonSarah Davidson: going global, partnerships and knowing when to stop →

98. Split your list into today, tomorrow and later, and only work today

    Sarah physically writes a list every day and sorts every item into three buckets. If it is not a today job, it moves off the page so she does not carry it. Her rule against distraction came from her husband: she was worrying about shipping matcha to Afghanistan when they could not yet ship to Caulfield North. Be discerning about what is genuinely urgent, because busy work like fixing the font on a post going out in two weeks gives you the tick without the progress.

    Sarah DavidsonSarah Davidson: going global, partnerships and knowing when to stop →

99. Partner with brands that own the other moments in your customer's day

    Matcha Maiden stopped marketing as though matcha was the customer's whole identity. They mapped the rest of that person's day: fitness, activewear, plant-based milk. Then they ran joint giveaways, events and goodie bags with those brands, including repeated activations with Lululemon. Ten businesses running one competition could each pick up around 15,000 new email addresses off a shared consumer.

    Sarah DavidsonSarah Davidson: going global, partnerships and knowing when to stop →

100. Use a 3 to 1 rule before you touch commercial property

     Scott's sequence is two or three residential houses first, held for three to five years, then one big deposit into a commercial asset. Residential lets you borrow more, has a lower barrier to entry and is harder to stuff up while you learn. He is blunt about entry-level commercial: under $500,000 cash, buy resi all day. Above roughly $700,000 you are in the game for commercial.

     Scott O'NeillDe-risking your business with commercial property →

101. Judge a commercial yield against the market cap rate, not in isolation

     Scott's range is 5 to 9 per cent, with most good deals between high 5s and 7 per cent. Anything above 7 per cent implies more risk: regional market, shorter lease or inflated rent. The real test is buying at a yield above the suburb's natural capitalisation rate. Buy at 6 per cent where the market cap rate is 5 per cent and you have bought 20 per cent under value.

     Scott O'NeillDe-risking your business with commercial property →

102. Run the return-on-equity maths before you park profit in property

     Scott's worked example: a 6 per cent yielding asset at 65 per cent leverage and a 6 per cent interest rate returns about 5 per cent pure cash flow after debt. Add 5 per cent per annum capital growth and you are at roughly 16 per cent return on the equity you put in. A 7 per cent asset takes it to about 21 per cent. If your business margin beats 15 to 20 per cent, keep the money in operations instead.

     Scott O'NeillDe-risking your business with commercial property →

103. Narrow to one demographic and watch the floodgates open

     Leah's biggest trajectory change with Kaya was drawing a line in the sand: women only, over 40. Before that she was trying to be everything to everyone. Jessy backed this from the agency side, saying the brands Hive HQ works with see takeoff at the moment they get really specific about their demo. Pick the customer you can serve better than anyone, then say no to the rest.

     Talitha CumminsBeyond the Logo: Building Brands That Last →

104. Post one titled reel every night, no scheduling, no exceptions

     Talitha has released one 30-second video a night for close to two years. Each one carries a big blunt title on the front, like "Diamonds Are Not an Investment", rather than the moodboard aesthetic the rest of the jewellery category uses. Some hit 3 million views, some get 20,000. That single habit drives all website traffic, leads and appointment bookings, and she only started Meta ads about six months ago.

     Talitha CumminsBeyond the Logo: Building Brands That Last →

105. Get someone to interview you on camera instead of talking to yourself

     Talitha's first videos took a thousand takes filming alone in her bedroom. The format only clicked when another journalist offered to ask her questions off camera while filming. Answering a real question is easier than performing a monologue. If solo pieces to camera stall you, book a friend for an hour and film ten answers.

     Talitha CumminsBeyond the Logo: Building Brands That Last →

106. Recycle your home loan debt to halve your interest cost

     Theo's method: park savings in the loan account redraw (not the offset), then draw that money out for investment purposes. On a $1.3 million home loan, pulling $300,000 out of redraw to buy property, shares or another investment makes $300,000 of that loan tax deductible. On the top tax bracket, 6% interest effectively costs you 3%. He calls making the entire home loan deductible over time one of life's biggest hacks, and notes it is general advice you must validate with an accountant or financial planner.

     Theo ChambersTheo Chambers on property, super and debt recycling →

107. Contribute to super yourself, because nobody else will

     Business owners skip super because it is voluntary for them, then hit 50 with nothing in it. The concessional cap is $30,000 a year. In the top tax bracket you get roughly half back as a rebate, so $30,000 in costs you about $15,000. Earnings inside super are taxed at 15% and 10% on capital gains, and in retirement phase both income and gains are tax free.

     Theo ChambersTheo Chambers on property, super and debt recycling →

108. Show a profit or the bank will not lend to you

     Theo's step one before buying anything is making sure the business actually shows profit, because that is what drives serviceability. Growing revenue on digital marketing spend, followers or engagement means nothing to a lender. Banks will not lend against revenue growth. If you suppress profit to avoid tax, you also suppress your borrowing capacity.

     Theo ChambersTheo Chambers on property, super and debt recycling →

109. Do five things at 100 percent instead of 20 things at 20 percent

     Thu says the brands that scale well pick a strict strategy and stick to it with conviction, while the ones that plateau chase 20 different ideas at once. Her advice to visionary founders who arrive with 10 ideas is to filter down to three, execute those fully, then move to the next. Also know when to quit a strategy that clearly is not working rather than staying fixated on it.

     Thu NguyenThu Nguyen on Profit, Focus and Going Global →

110. Judge growth on EBITDA, not the revenue headline

     Founders proudly report 100 percent year on year revenue growth while their spend has gone up 400 percent. Thu's framing: there is no point making an extra dollar if it costs you two dollars to do it. Protect profit as the number, and treat revenue growth as meaningless without the margin behind it.

     Thu NguyenThu Nguyen on Profit, Focus and Going Global →

111. Bank a few quarters of profitability before you scale

     Thu's test for readiness is several consecutive quarters of stable profitability, not appetite or ambition. She sees founders raise capital during a plateau and then use that money to survive rather than grow. Before you take investment, ask honestly whether the capital funds growth or just keeps the lights on.

     Thu NguyenThu Nguyen on Profit, Focus and Going Global →

112. Test the marketplace on social media before you build any tech

     Wendy started Wedded Wonderland on Facebook around 2011-2012, simply talking about the suppliers she was meeting and the problems brides had. She treats social as a live survey: throw questions out, see what businesses and couples respond to, and use the answers as your product research. Only after years of that did the tech platform and concierge get built.

     Wendy ElkhouryTwo-sided marketplaces: start with demand, then supply →

113. Build the demand side first, then go to suppliers with proof

     Wedded Wonderland deliberately serviced couples first. Once couples were asking for weddings in Mallorca, proposals in Paris, photo shoots in Lake Como and weddings in Tuscany, Wendy could approach venues and vendors and say she had specific couples looking in their area, backed by search data. Her framing: "if you have the demand, it's far easier to be able to connect with the businesses that can service that demand."

     Wendy ElkhouryTwo-sided marketplaces: start with demand, then supply →

114. Cover the supply gap with a free concierge so you never lose a lead

     Wedded Wonderland's concierge is complimentary for couples, which means even when a listing does not exist for a request, the team can go and find a vetted supplier. That removes the classic cold-start problem where a customer arrives, sees an empty category and leaves. The concierge also does the vetting work the customer cannot do from the other side of the world.

     Wendy ElkhouryTwo-sided marketplaces: start with demand, then supply →