Exit strategies, bootstrapping and remote teams, and the best Australian unicorn founder

Welcome to the Startup 360 with Kayla Medica and Simon Thomsen.
It’s all about founder fun, finding out what makes people tick and staying human.

For our second show, Kayla and Simon discuss exit strategies in the wake of KKR buying a $95 million slice of Employment Hero in a secondary market sale by OG investor Seek. With IPOs on the go slow, how do employees cash in on the success they helped build?

They also talked about how women are treated on social media after LinkedIn delayed taking down a post where a man compared marketing to breast sizes and talked about “A cup ideas and using verbal push up bras to attract eyeballs”.

Kayla revealed that what you see in public is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what women have to deal with.

Our guests this week are Tom Bruining cofounder of profitable, bootstrapped startup HowdyGo.

His cofounders are in Perth and the UK/Italy, catching up daily for 60 minutes.

Tom talks about changing expectations from taking on investors - an experience he had in a previous startup - life working from home, and how to include your partner in what you’re doing. (He just got married)

Joining us for 10x, our rapid-fire 10 questions, is Brian Swift, cofounder of Twine, which coincidentally, announced a $2.3 million raise backed by Airtree, just before he stepped into the studio.

Brian’s CV includes time at Twitter, Atlassian, SafetyCulture, and Dovetail so we asked him about what he learnt, and what’s different when you become a founder, the favourite founder he worked for, and the startups he sees with unicorn potential.

He also revealed that they had between 50 and 100 names on a whiteboard before choosing Twine and explains how they chose it, as well as his favourite TV show.

Startup 360 is supported by Vanta, helping startups unlock market opportunities through automated compliance.