Meet the Founders

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Innovation Hubs and Community, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Hi everyone, I'm Carol, part of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems team here at Sydney Startup Hub, and I'm delighted to be here today with Paula, who's the founder of Blind Chihuahua. Paula, tell us a little bit about your startup.

Paula Jones, Blind Chihuahua Blind Chihuahua started as a live-streaming company for concerts and gigs in Australia, and then I thought, well, how do we actually bring the audience in so that they feel like they're part of it and they are actually part of it so that they're in the show. About six months ago, that kind of became the metaverse. So unbeknown to us, we were participants in that whole ecosystem and it's kind of grown from there. I had no idea about startups, and I came into an accelerator and that taught me some of the startup fundamentals and pitching and fundraising. And because I was the regional founder, I was opening this downstairs on level one, the Regional Startup Landing Pad.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Innovation Hubs and Community, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Yep.

Paula Jones, Blind Chihuahua Now I have three of my team here and we're here every day.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Innovation Hubs and Community, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How has it impacted you and maybe your team?

Paula Jones, Blind Chihuahua They actually said to me they feel much more like a professional team rather than somebody that's doing it as a hobby from their bedroom.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Innovation Hubs and Community, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Have you found a cohort of other women here at the Hub to kind of even support you or offer advice or their perspective?

Paula Jones, Blind Chihuahua It's a lot different when you dig a little further on in the journey to start something completely new where you have no idea of what you're doing. And there are a lot of women led companies in this building who are not 18. And I think that's really important to be able to see your peers be successful.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Innovation Hubs and Community, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW What's coming up for the next six months?

Paula Jones, Blind Chihuahua I have no idea and it could be anything. But the thing is, is that now I feel like it doesn't matter what those things might be, that that we can do it.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Innovation Hubs and Community, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW We want to see more women like yourselves leading startups, inspiring the next generation of founders to go, I can do it too. So, I really appreciate you sharing your story with us today.

Paula Jones, Blind Chihuahua My pleasure.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Innovation Hubs and Community, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Thanks, Paula.

Paula Jones, Blind Chihuahua Thank you.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Hi, I'm Michelle Long, Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems within Investment NSW and today I have with me Matt and Scott from BookPhysio. So, hi guys, thank you for your time today. Tell me what is BookPhysio?

Matthew Gregory, BookPhysio We hope it's in the name. We're a physiotherapy booking site. There's a big challenge for patients that are you know injured or and they're needing an appointment and we're trying to sort of answer that problem by displaying availabilities on a map so they can quickly see what's available nearby.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Are you just based in NSW?

Matthew Gregory, BookPhysio Nationally based so we're building up the network at the moment.

Scott Gentle, BookPhysio The reason we started was sort of pandemic related. So, I'm a physio and I called Matt and we had a chat about what I could do to enhance my own digital presence. So, how to get more patients in the door without utilising receptionists, phones, all that sort of stuff and it kind of sparked an idea in his head.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How long have you’ve been a member of Fishburners?

Matthew Gregory, BookPhysio Well I've been here in a previous business, so I've been here for about three years now.

Scott Gentle, BookPhysio For me not working in this sort of environment at all was really helpful for me to just sort of see what that ecosystem looks like, get support.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Have you guys received any NSW Government grants?

Scott Gentle, BookPhysio We were successful in getting the MVP grant about 12 months ago.

Matthew Gregory, BookPhysio So there was support around it, wasn't just a form to fill out. You know if the NSW Government's prepared to sort of back us in a middle of a crisis, for us it made us feel like you know we're on the right trajectory.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW What does the next six months look like for you guys?

Matthew Gregory, BookPhysio Just trying to like make sure that we hit that critical mass so that no matter where you are in Australia if you need a physiotherapist there's one nearby.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Well guys thank you so much for coming and talking to me today and we're going to follow your journey.

Scott Gentle, BookPhysio Appreciate it.

Matthew Gregory, BookPhysio bookphysio.com.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Hi everyone, I’m Carol and I’m part of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems team which is a part of Investment NSW. I’m here today at the Sydney Startup Hub today talking to one of our talented Founders who makes up our community. Say hello to Joona. Joona, you’re’ the founder of Coredo – tell us a bit about your startup Journey.

Joona Puhakka, Coredo We're a software development Agency company so we're really solving the problem of building all this digital space and world that we live in and we're helping founders to do it better.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How long have you been based here at the Sydney Startup Hub?

Joona Puhakka, Coredo For past three months and I just moved to the country and now expanding our business here in Sydney.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How has the hub helped you kind of land and expand shall we say?

Joona Puhakka, Coredo Well I'd be sitting by myself somewhere in the corner so this is massive. To be honest entrepreneurs are kind of its own unique breed, so it's difficult to find people who go so passionately about something unknown and share experiences.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW What made you decide the Startup Hub opposed to any other co-working space?

Joona Puhakka, Coredo Well it's the whole approach to a community and I know every place is working on the community, but I'm actually getting help out here. Coredo is based out of Finland initially and we have similar concept in Helsinki, Finland, but it's not this good. You're doing better job and like I said I feel like I'm getting help.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW What are your goals for the next 12 months?

Joona Puhakka, Coredo I'm excited I think it's the city is big and full of possibilities. I want to grow fast so we want to hire more local people here.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW You've heard that - looking for talent.

Joona Puhakka, Coredo Looking for talent - I'm fighting for it like everyone else.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Thank you so much for sharing your story with us today and I hope you continue to find value in being a part of our Sydney Startup Hub.

Joona Puhakka, Coredo Thanks for having me.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Thanks so much.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Hi, I'm Michelle Long. I’m the Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems within Investment NSW and I’m here today talking to Peter and Laura from Helio. Tell me a little bit about your business and what problem you’re solving.

Laura Hall, Helio Helio is an advertising marketplace making the complex process of booking ad space easy. Whether it be on a billboard, a bus, in a newspaper, they can come to Helio and find everything they need in minutes. We launched in February last year.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW So you launched in the middle of a pandemic?

Laura Hall, Helio We sure did.

Peter Hall, Helio We started downstairs in the Startup Hub for the desk space and the resources there and then we graduated to our residency in Stone and Chalk.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Do you have any aspirations to say move or relocate to Tech Central Scaleup Hub at some point?

Laura Hall, Helio Absolutely.

Peter Hall, Helio The Scaleup is going to be the next point alongside our growth. The facilities there are looking fantastic. In 2019 we successfully applied for an MVP Grant. It allowed us to, alongside bootstrapping, to get us to a point in our product that we could validate it and get our first customers.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment Laura, it would be really remiss of me not to ask you about your journey as a as a female co-founder.

Laura Hall, Helio It was really important for me to make sure that I got out into the community, and I networked as much as I could in those early years. I got involved in programs like Tech Ready Women where I was able to do their online program. I’ve really been very grateful for the level of support that's been out there to help, not just myself, but the business as well.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment Well thanks guys so much for coming and spending some time with me this morning. I think Helio is a watch this space.

Peter Hall, Helio Thank you very much.

Laura Hall, Helio Thank you so much.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Hi, I'm Michelle Long and I’m from the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems team within Investment NSW and I’m here today with the team from Paytron. Jaco and Francois, what is Paytron and what problem are you solving?

Francois Henrion, Paytron It’s a treasury management platform for small, medium and large businesses. It’s how cash flows and all the various touchpoints of cash flows within your business. It streamlines it and creates a whole amount of efficiencies for the SMES. It’s effectively one place to pay your domestic suppliers, your international suppliers and your staff.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How long have you been around for?

Jaco Veldsman, Paytron It’s been just over 18 months. We started with three people and now we are up to 30 people.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Are you really? Are you that big in 18 months?

Jaco Veldsman, Paytron The whole thing actually started in this building.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Did you two know each other before you came into the building?

Francois Henrion, Paytron We met just on the corner, outside the building.

 Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW oh really!

Jaco Veldsman, Paytron If you’re walking into a new environment and you're starting something, who are the best people to ask and say what are the things I shouldn't do, what are the things I should do? It’s startup people like startup founders

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Those that are a few steps ahead of you that actually pay it forward or pay it back.

Jaco Veldsman, Paytron That's right and we've found a massive benefit from that where we've outperformed our competitors.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Go NSW!

Jaco Veldsman, Paytron Oh we are big fans. People outside NSW, outside Australia they normally are astounded. They actually go like “geez you've got a great government. You’ve got a really great thing going there”.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW What's on the horizon for you guys over the next six months?

Jaco Veldsman, Paytron We're launching in the UK, and again with the help of Investment NSW and Austrade.

Francois Henrion, Paytron The UK fintech bridge that has been created between Australia and the UK just means we'll get up and running there much sooner.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Thank you for your time.

Francois Henrion, Paytron Thanks very much.

Jaco Veldsman, Paytron Appreciate your time.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Hi everyone, I’m Carol and I’m part of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems team, part of Investment NSW. I’m here today at the Sydney Startup Hub with one of our amazing founders, Pablo who’s the co-founder of PropHero. Tell us a little bit about PropHero.

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero So at PropHero we are digitising the property investment journey. So, our vision is why can you buy Amazon shares from your phone, but you can't buy property anywhere in the world.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW That's quite an ambitious problem to be solving and a good market to be doing it in.

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero We are very data backed like that's where Michael, my business partner, comes from. He has a double degree mathematician, like super bright guy. I strongly believe that ideas are worth 10, 15%.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Anyone can have an idea.

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero Yes, it's just how you execute it and I think that's where both Michael and I have excelled on bringing the best talent to the team. We recently celebrated our first-year anniversary here.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Congratulations and you've been at the Sydney Startup Hub since the beginning.

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero Since the beginning, yes.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Have you received any kind of government assistance?

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero Yes, we got the MVP grant which was great. It really helps a lot, especially with the tech resources being so expensive. It definitely helps a lot. You get also from the community, like if you're missing on something you will share or they will say “hey have you applied for this?”, then you investigate a bit more.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Tell us a little bit about some accolades you've recently won.

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero Yes, we won the Prop Tech Startup of the Year.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Congratulations!

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero Yes, helps us building a lot of trust for our clients.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW We look forward to looking at where PropHero is in 12 months’ time.

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero Thank you very much. Just one last piece of advice, I mean it's a tough journey as I mentioned before. Like you have to be ready and committed to not have a vacation or being paid nothing. There's a lot to it but I mean it fulfills you a lot.

Carol Friel, Associate Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW That’s great, thank you very much.

Pablo Gil Brusola, PropHero Awesome, thank you.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Hi, I'm Michelle Long. I'm part of Investment NSW and I'm fortunate enough to be heading up the
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems team, and today I'm here with Tom Lyczynski from a Vpply. Tom, thank you for spending time with me.

Tom Lyczynski, Vpply Great, glad to be here.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Tell us, what is Vpply and what problem are you solving.

Tom Lyczynski, Vpply Sure. It's a job board. I guess the problem we're trying to solve is to streamline the application process and simplify for job seekers by using video technology and also shortening the time to hire for our clients. The first step of the application is video. We're actually treating the person - who are you, tell your story, tell me a bit about yourself - before we see your CV and cover letter, so we're just flipping the order around. It's been going really well, and we've got 50,000 jobs on the site at the moment.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How long have you been a member with Fishburners?

Tom Lyczynski, Vpply I joined around October 2020.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW In the middle of a pandemic!

Tom Lyczynski, Vpply Why not, right?

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How has it helped you and your business?

Tom Lyczynski, Vpply Partnerships. Collaboration. I didn't think it would be such a community where everyone shares ideas. I think you spoke to Matt and Scott and I see them daily and we talk about possibly collaborating in the future. Any conversation you have with a startup could lead to a great partnership. Just be bold and have a chat.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW What is on the horizon for Vpply?

Tom Lyczynski, Vpply We're hiring some really, really good people.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How many people do you have in the business?

Tom Lyczynski, Vpply We've got 10 at the moment.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW That's great!

Tom Lyczynski, Vpply We’re also launching in other markets and we've got a soft launch in Jakarta this week.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Best of luck for the next six months. Watch this space

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW My name is Michelle Long and I’m the Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems within Investment NSW and I’m here today with Martin Boyd. Martin, tell us about the startup you have here at Sydney Startup Hub.

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security So the startup we have is around cyber security. My background is doing cyber security for a big bank and realised that I wanted to help lots of other companies with their cyber security and so we started Vertex.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Great, have you ever looked back?

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security No. No never.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Leaving a big bank, starting your own startup and setting up shop here at the Sydney Startup Hub.

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security Oh look, you always do look back. You can't help but compare to the past, but I think at the end of the day you move on for reasons and those reasons don't change moving forward.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How long have you been here at the Sydney Startup Hub?

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security For about four years now.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Since we opened!

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security Yeah since you opened, yes correct.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW And have you have you ever received a NSW Government grant?

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security Yes, so we received the Going Global for USA and that was really awesome. You know the Australian government behind you helping you to grow into other areas.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW And how would you rank that grant out of 10?

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security I'd rank it nine.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW I'll take that.

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security Mandatory to be honest for any business that's actually growing and wanting to grow.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Do you have any aspirations to move to the Tech Central Scaleup Hub?

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security So cool news is we just signed yesterday to be part of the Scaleup Hub.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Well done! What are you forecasting for the next 12 months for your company?

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security Look, with Tech Central I think that'll be great. It'll give us another place for us to grow. I mean we've consistently grown each year and I think the next year is going to be no different to that.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Well it's been so lovely to talk to you. As much as we’ll be sad to see you leave the Sydney startup Hub, we look forward to seeing you up there.

Martin Boyd, Vertex Cyber Security Thanks so much. My pleasure, I appreciate it.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW That’s a wrap.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Hi, I'm Michelle Long, Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems in Investment NSW and we’re here today with Camille Goldstone Henry. Not only are you a female founder, you’re an Indigenous female founder. Tell me about your journey to being an entrepreneur.

Camille Goldstone Henry, Xylo Systems I’m the CEO and co-founder of a biodiversity tech startup, Xylo systems. I am a wildlife conservation scientist and I'm a descendant of the Kamilaroi people. Working as a wildlife conservation scientist here in Australia and around the world I saw a lot of inefficiencies. We're currently losing biodiversity at unprecedented rates, so we need new tools and new ways of thinking to tackle the extinction crisis.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Tell me why the Sydney Startup Hub?

Camille Goldstone Henry, Xylo Systems For the community that's around here and the resources that are available to us. They have opened doors that we wouldn't have otherwise accessed to.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW How big is your company now?

Camille Goldstone Henry, Xylo Systems We're a team of two - my co-founder and I. My co-founder, Jada Anderson is our Chief Product Officer, but we are looking to expand our team.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Did you hear that? They're looking for employees!

Camille Goldstone Henry, Xylo Systems Growing up as an Indigenous woman I didn't have a lot of role models in the tech or entrepreneur or innovation space that I could look up to and say you know she looks like me I can do that as well. So, I'm really hoping to be that for other Indigenous women and First Nations people in general.

Michelle Long, Director, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems, Investment NSW Camille, thank you so much for your time and thank you for talking to me today.

Camille Goldstone Henry, Xylo Systems Thank you for having me.