SaaS Stories
SaaS Stories is my not-so-secret quest to learn what it truly takes to succeed in the world of SaaS—and I’m inviting you along for the ride! I have the pleasure of sitting down with brilliant minds and industry trailblazers to explore their journeys, uncovering the secrets behind their growth, the gaps they spotted in the market, and what really drives them.
It’s not all smooth sailing—there are challenges, unexpected turns, and moments of reflection where they share what they’d love to change about their journey. Think of it as a candid, insider’s look into the world of SaaS, with just the right amount of curiosity, empathy, and wit.
Join me as I dive deep, selfishly soak up all the insights, and hopefully share a little inspiration with you along the way—one SaaS story at a time.
SaaS Stories
Goggles On, Reality Off: The Training Revolution Nobody Saw Coming
Ever witnessed that moment of pure wonder when someone experiences virtual reality for the first time? That childlike innocence – that "wow" moment – was exactly what convinced Angus Stevens that Start Beyond was onto something revolutionary. Now approaching its 10-year anniversary, Start Beyond has transformed how organisations approach training, turning it from a dreaded chore into an experience employees actively seek out.
At the heart of Start Beyond's success is a carefully balanced approach to technology and storytelling. Their process always begins with two critical questions: "How do you want the audience to feel?" and "How do you envisage this content will be consumed?"
By starting with these human aspects rather than technological capabilities, they create experiences that deliver both practical knowledge and emotional impact. This philosophy extends to their selective adoption of artificial intelligence – despite the hype, they implement AI only when it genuinely enhances rather than detracts from the learning experience.
This childlike innocence that people would have, having done a VR experience even in those early days, was when I was like, right, there's a thing here. If we get this right, we're onto something. The principles behind why VR works is because it allows you to transport the user into a different environment and to be able to experience real-world scenarios without the real-world risk. Three minutes in VR you can get 10 minutes worth of content across. It's a very focused, very highly immersive scenario.
Speaker 1:Mully's is now faced with this unprecedented problem of going oh my God, everyone wants to do our training. It's all about getting the right people and then, when you find them, making sure they stay happy and that they grow and their ambitions are fulfilled and that you build the business as they build their ambitions and career growth. This analogy was told to me, which I think is hilarious and actually really, really true, which is there's two types of salespeople. There's the farmer and the hunter. So the farmer will take a product that's already existing and will cultivate it and make sure that it gets out to the right people and nurture them, toil the soil and make sure that product keeps ticking along, and the hunter will go and find the client and bloody chase him down.
Speaker 2:Welcome everybody to another episode of SaaS Stories. Today I'm joined by Angus Stevens, ceo and co-founder of Start Beyond. Welcome, angus, hi. Nice to be here, pleasure to have you Now. You've been on quite the journey. I mean you've gone from directing student films to co-founding a global augmented reality company. Tell me what's been the biggest mind shift in scaling businesses as you've gone along your journey and maybe tell us a little bit more about your journey from you know the times where you were shooting films to where you are today.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean geez shooting. I mean the student films. That was a while ago now, truth be told. But yeah, look, I think, look, you know, from the outset of my career it's always been around finding things that I engaged with creatively and finding different ways of being able to tell stories. And I've always been interested in different ways of being able to use different forms of narrative, whether it's filmmaking or, you know, working in digital platforms.
Speaker 1:In the early days of YouTube and so on, I was the video guy at a radio station, so it was very much about how are you going to use this to help the theater of radio work in a digital format? And then, more recently, yeah, doing virtual and augmented reality and looking at the ways that within that, you know, classical storytelling can be used. And often in this kind of industry, people who are into the tech don't necessarily have that, that old school sort of classic storytelling component to their um areas of interest or knowledge or what have you. And so I find having that background of filmmaking and you know I did in lit at at uni, so it's all very much, you know, the classical narrative kind of structure, and it's held me in really good stead throughout the course of my career.
Speaker 2:Amazing. And so what was the gap that you saw in the market, or maybe what were some of the early signs that Start Beyond had real market potential?
Speaker 1:I think it. I mean Start Beyond. You know we've been. We're coming up to our 10-year anniversary, if you can believe that, which is nuts Happy anniversary, thank you. So we're talking sort of you know, 2015, vr is just starting to become this thing, potentially, and we're looking at it, and I joined the business early 2016 and it really, I think, when I thought, oh, this thing's going to work is right at the start, when people put on those headsets, even back in the early days, and the visceral reaction that they had to the experience that they'd just gone through, and it's kind of it's that wow moment where you go, look, this is something that people don't. You know, everyone's jaded, everyone's cynics, everyone's you know, oh, what's the next technology? Rah, rah, rah. And then this childlike innocence that people would have, having done a VR experience, even in those early days, was when I was like, right, there's a thing here.
Speaker 2:If we get this right, we're onto something Amazing, and I mean, I don't even think VR and AR is considered mainstream now, let alone 10 years ago. So tell us a little bit about how you use it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean like augmented reality. It is a lot of people would argue. Augmented reality in particular is very mainstream when you think of all the different filters that folks use. That is all augmenting your reality with an extra layer, and so that's very much, I think, one application in which it is From a virtual reality perspective.
Speaker 1:What I think has been really interesting is that it is been presented as a consumer play. The, the, the big tech companies want consumers to be using vr and and ultimately, you know, the big market is at a business to consumer level. That's where the billions and billions can be made. When you look at it in versions of mobile phones and that sort of stuff, then that's, that's the play.
Speaker 1:But the interesting thing is that virtual reality, when you look at it from an enterprise perspective, and particularly from a training perspective and a content marketing perspective, actually has been around for a long time, doing a lot of really good work and and so, whilst it may not have that traditional version of mainstream being everyone using it for all things within a particular sector, and certainly in the in the sector that we're working in, it's fascinating to see over the course of the past 10 years, it's gone from people going oh, what's VR to? I've done VR, I like it, I have an opinion, or I don't have an opinion, but I'm curious. But the level of knowledge around it is a lot greater now than back in the day. It was an education piece. Now people know about it and it's just a matter of is it applicable to what their use case is?
Speaker 2:right and and so people and marketers out there considering content and maybe implementing vr into it. Can you name some use cases or maybe specific industry that it works better for? So is it, can it work in the b2b or is it predominantly for consumers?
Speaker 1:yeah, great, yeah, very much it can work in B2B. So I think the way to think of it isn't necessarily like the work we do is industry agnostic. We work across all the different main sort of pillars and we bounce from, you know, retail to automotive, to consumer goods, to tourism, et cetera, like there's really no industry that it's not applicable for. Fundamentally because of the reason that the principles behind why VR works is because it allows you to transport the user into a different environment and to be able to experience real-world scenarios without the real-world risk, and so within that, you can create empathy, you can create mindset shifts, you can generate knowledge really quickly by learning through experience, without actually having to be in that location or do that specific task. And so all of those sort of filters means that a whole bunch of different industries can use it and get value from it.
Speaker 1:So if you were a company and you're going oh, look, it's really hard to get all our people in the one room to do the training. Or, oh, it's really hard to be able to get our clients to understand what our product looks like. Or it's really hard to onboard everyone at the same time and have them all have the same values about how to manage a customer, then all of those sort of challenges are things that VR works really really well at being able to address. Yeah, I could go on and on. In fact, I was about to grab it on a bit further. I thought, no, I'll zip it and wait.
Speaker 2:No, I like it. I'm already imagining some of the use cases I could kind of tap into. But yeah, you're right, Like it kind of gamifies a lot of the challenges and the pain points that organizations have. It makes it a little bit more fun is do you think that's why it works?
Speaker 1:yeah, I think it works because um well, I mean talking because we're sort of bouncing between vr and ar. So the reason why vr works is because basically, everyone's used to multiple screens, multiple distractions simultaneously. You chuck on the headset, you got nowhere to go, you are locked in and so within that it means you know three minutes in vr, you can get 10 minutes worth of content across. It's a very focused, very um, highly immersive scenario and so because of that, people remember what they've gone through as well. So if you, if you have good content, um, and it's compelling, people will remember it and it'll stay with you and and that's fun, um, we did a piece for woolies.
Speaker 1:We've worked with woolies for a while now, for about six, seven years. The training with them is now at the point where they had this one campaign. They were like we want 25 000 people to go through it in three months and they had 50 000 people go through it because so many of those people had already done other vr training that they'd really enjoyed, so they wanted to do module and Willys is now faced with this unprecedented problem of going. Oh my God, everyone wants to do our training, which is such a great problem to have.
Speaker 2:I was going to say usually companies have the opposite problem. No one wants to do that training, do they Exactly? It's so boring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally. So you know, I think VR works in that regard because you're capturing people's imagination. If you make it interesting, you're off and running. And I think that AR works when you basically are supplementing your existing assets with a 3D visualisation of complex concepts, or it might be getting insight and understanding how the machine works, and so AR can work really well if you've got print assets or digital assets that have kind of become fatigued and people aren't really engaging with it, and then you use some AR as a little QR code to then have that content pop and visualize that in a 3D or a sort of animated format, and then people are like oh, wow, and then they re-engage with the content and they're off and running right, you know that sounds interesting.
Speaker 2:I definitely will be exploring a little bit more of that.
Speaker 1:Um, we have a lot of old content lying around that should be repurposed oh, there you go, and the beauty of it is you're basically just giving a new sort of lick of technology paint and then you're off and running.
Speaker 1:I mean, one example we did was for high school students and they've got the periodic table. So you know, you've got the 150 elements and it's, you know, hydrogen and yada, yada. And so what we did is we took those posters which are all around the country and we made your phone work in AR as a marker and so you scan the periodic table and then the 13 elements which have got a link to nuclear science, because we built it out for a client that is working in the nuclear science area called ANSTO. So, anyhow, the 13 elements that have got a nuclear science related to it, they pop out and you find out that, like, potassium is actually radioactive and potassium's in bananas and in the little AR model go and you see a little banana and potassium and you get that touch point. And so for high school students, suddenly this poster no one cared less about is is interesting and engaging and they want to learn about the periodic table amazing.
Speaker 2:Quite frankly, I found the poster pretty interesting as well, but but this is next level. You're top of the class Maybe not in science, so you've been running this for 10 years. Tell me what were maybe some of the best decisions you made as a founder when it came time to scale the company, like looking back on it now.
Speaker 1:what were maybe the top three decisions you made that really helped? I think the the first thing that really helped was um, we had a whole bunch of co-founders we had we were too top heavy and in that, what it meant was that we did not have the focus the business needed, and so we were creating entertainment content, as well as educational and content, marketing content and my whole mantra is strategy is choosing what not to do. And when we chose not to do entertainment and we just went right, you know, and those co-founders left the business and we're doing training and we're doing content marketing and we're focusing on that, it was like suddenly this anchor had been pulled up and we were off and running. So that was a massive sort of watershed moment. And the fascinating thing with that is that at the time, people were saying oh, yeah, yeah, no, I'm really committed.
Speaker 1:But you may be really committed, but if actually one part of the business wants to do one thing and another part of the business wants to do another, it doesn't matter how much you say you're committed. The fundamental thing is you're splitting your energy. So by creating that focus and just going after this one particular vision and having the strategy. Just be about that. It really meant that the business took off and I mean, I know you said three points, that's my biggest one. I say that three times over.
Speaker 2:Maybe the second one can be about hiring. So you know you've got the leadership team now focused. What was your first hire after that? Like a game-changing hire.
Speaker 1:I think I mean we've had from the outset, like this, jager and I he's the CTO and I'm the CEO and then Isabella and Joseph have been with the business from the start as well and they've really grown with the business and they head up the studio team and platform teams, and so we've got two arms to the business that work very closely in tandem.
Speaker 1:And so having Izzy and Joseph with Izzy running platform, joseph running studio, having those guys as core has been fundamental and they're incredibly talented and incredibly smart and from that we've then been able to build out a great business and a great team. And, and I think the biggest learning that I've had over the course of this 10 years, and also in in my whole career, but particularly when you're running your own company, is, um, it's all about getting the right people, like you know, and and then, when you find them, making sure they stay happy and that they grow and their ambitions are fulfilled and that you build the business as they build their ambitions and career growth, and if you get that right, then I think you're incredibly lucky and you're a fool if you bugger it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that people are very important. Something we talk a lot about on this show specifically is the different types of growth that SaaS companies go through, so it could be like founder-led growth, product-led growth, sales-led growth. I think, from what you're telling me, it sounds like yours was very much about the product and also founder as well. Is there a point in time where you thought, right, we need to get a sales team to grow this thing?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean it's interesting you say that to grow this thing. Yes, I mean it's interesting you say that it we're. We're at a point now whereby the way that we've we've worked has been very much reactive, we've got, you know, we don't, we haven't done sales, like we haven't done sales, um which I'm looking at the business now and going all right, well, this is nuts. So if you know any really good v AR talented sales folks, send them my way, because I'm honestly like I was literally having a chat to the CTO Jager half an hour ago about oh man, we've got to get a good salesperson.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah Well, anyone listening right now. If that fits your profile or you know anyone, reach out to Angus. That's incredible. No sales team and yet you've worked with brands like Meta, Accenture, Woolies as well. That's incredible. Like, what's your advice for landing high-profile partnerships like that?
Speaker 1:Look, I mean, obviously I'm doing the dance and I'm out there promoting the company and leading, from a sales perspective the thing. There's two things to it. One, your reputation enters the room. Before you do so, you have to do good work and you have to be someone who comes into the work looking at what can I do to make your business better, what can I do to solve your problem?
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people look at it from what they want their company to do and in doing so, miss out on a whole bunch of opportunities because they're not looking at it from the client's perspective. You've got to look at it from the client's perspective if you want to be able to be of value. And so you know you talk about your metas and your extensions. Well, one of the things those guys have, they're big, so they need someone who's going to be agile, who can go. Well, I can fix that, I can do that quick. I know the way around to get that solution for you, because they're not necessarily going to be able to, with the structures and so on that they have within their organization, be able to respond the way. So you work out what your point of difference is and how that can be of value to your client, no matter how big or small they are. And then you're off and running.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I find that as well. I think with big companies there's so much change management. If you come in with a structured point of view like, oh, we only use these tools and we only do it this way, and it just doesn't work for them, whereas if you're willing to be more flexible, they can kind of slot you in here and there and then just land and expand from there.
Speaker 1:I suppose yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, I mean, and and on the sales thing, just like going back a step like this. This analogy was told to me, which I think is hilarious and actually really, really true, which is there's two types of salespeople. There's the farmer and the hunter. So the farmer will take a product that's already existing and we'll cultivate it and make sure that it gets out to the right people and nurture them, toil the soil and make sure that product keeps ticking along, and the hunter will go and find the client and bloody, chase him down and create a solution for whoever that client might be.
Speaker 2:And the product's ready or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So I think that's part of the challenge we've had is that we have always just had me out there prowling the prairies finding the next gig. But we actually need a farmer too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so a bit of both. Then I guess a farmer and a hunter in an organization will help. Yes, what about marketing? You know sales. Maybe it's been kind of on founder-led growth side, but with marketing, what have you found has worked really well? I mean, obviously you would have had amazing content, given your business Anything that stands out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think the way that I look at marketing is through the lens of any job that we take on. It has to be something that's aligned with our values and work that we'd be proud to show, and if it's not, then it doesn't matter how much you're going to get for it. You really have to look long and hard and go well, why am I putting my energy into that if I'm not prepared to make that be one of my showpiece works? And so every job that we choose to do, we're doing with the lens to the marketing strategy behind that as well, because it has to be a case study that we're proud of, and if it's not, I I just don't do the work, I just wouldn't do it. Um, and so that really drives our marketing, uh, and and pr as well, because it's then, well, this is the stuff that we're proud of, our clients are proud of it, we want the world to know about it and and use that as part of the overall approach of how we're going to build out the business anything.
Speaker 2:One thing, one thing you said earlier was storytelling, which I want to come back to, actually, because I think this is really important, especially when AI is writing everybody's content nowadays. I do find that there's that story lacking a little bit. How do you go about using storytelling in your content?
Speaker 1:The way any client when they come to us, whether they know what they want to do or they don't, the first two questions that I ask is how do you want the audience to feel, or the user or the learner, how do you want them to feel and how do you envisage this content will be consumed? And then everything works backwards from that. So you need to know well, I want them to be viewing this, you know, at their desk, or we're going to have a controlled vr environment where there's a lab or it's going to be. There's a headset in in the office and they have to come in during their lunch break, whatever. So you want to know your distribution, or it's going to be, we're going to do it as a mobile app and we're going to have it be accessed that way, um, during work hours or after hours, or what have you right? And then it's like and how do you want them to feel? Because knowing how you want them to feel will determine what the most appropriate.
Speaker 1:Knowing the distribution of it will determine whether VR or AR is the right thing or a mobile phone 360 version of it is the right thing. So, and we build all of those things using our platform. So it's like all right, we need to know what is the best version of this new media in the distribution that you want to do, and then the second thing we need to know is how you want them to, at the end of this experience, feel, act, behave, et cetera. And once you've got that, then the story writes itself, because the client's the subject matter expert, but they just don't know how to use this technology and they don't know necessarily how to get their user to the point of insight or knowledge that that they want them to be at, and so that's our job to help get those two things done I love that.
Speaker 2:How do you want the customers to feel? I don't think enough people asked that question. It's more about what do you want them to do rather than how do you want them to feel. But everything is feelings it really is ludicrous.
Speaker 1:But I think part of the reason why our business is so successful is because, whilst we're a tech company, it's not the technology that's driving the choice. It's how we want the person to feel at the end of it that drives the choice yeah, and I mean, humans are so emotional.
Speaker 2:They purchase based on emotion, not what they're supposed to be doing, which is really the case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, spot on.
Speaker 2:Speaking of AI, though how do you use AI? How do you balance AI as well as creativity, and you know, as well as the human element?
Speaker 1:element. So it's really interesting. With AI, there's a whole bunch of different ways that we are both using it and not using it and being very strategic about it. So examples of we use it within the production workflow there's a whole bunch of different ways that you can use AI to improve different technical components, just around the quality of the images that you're creating and this sort of stuff. So the studio guys you, you know, get down and dirty in terms of cleverness there. Um, which extends as far as we're doing the case study video, where I was talking about something we've done for the client and um going through this, this particular role, and they played me back the video and said do you like it? I said, yeah, yeah, that's great, yeah, it's worked really well, and they were like giggling. I said, well, what's up? And basically they'd taken my voice. I hadn't said what they wanted me to say. So they put overlay of other footage over my face and then used AI to get my voice to say what they wanted me to say and I didn't pick it.
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, didn't pick it, I can't, yeah, so they also did me doing it in spanish, which naturally, you know I sounded amazing, uh, but it was ludicrous, um, so, yeah, so, anyhow, so we'll work within that space in terms of like, there's a whole bunch of different ways that ai can now work in terms of branching narratives and being able to have dialogue based learning, and we're uh exploring different ways to be able to use that. The thing that's really interesting with it is that whenever those sort of formats are being done, you really need an incredibly high level internet network connection for it to play and, at the moment, the like, if you think, you put on the goggles, you're immediately in this transfixed environment, you're talking and you're able to respond to the situation, and there's no lag, there's no jankiness. Now, the minute you go into an AI avatar-based piece, even with incredible internet, it's still janky and there's still this lag of people having to think and wait as the machine thinks and waits and gets back to you and, yes, there will come a moment where that lag is gone, but right now it's there. So the way that we're playing in that space is we're making sure that we know exactly when that shoe drops, that we're on the front foot to be able to then leverage it. But we're also not prepared to undermine the quality of our training right now by using it when, in actual fact, the user every time as, as a user, you're taken out of the training and having to wait for the technology to cut catch up, your training quality is diminished and your learning capacity is diminished.
Speaker 1:And, and so I feel very strongly about yes, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, and in this case, I don't think that it's ready yet for the use cases that we have and, I think, for our clients. You know the way I would position it. You know, and they go oh, but it's cheaper doing that. But it's like, well, if it's cheaper but you don't actually get the learning or the content marketing outcome across, then it's just a big waste of money. Anyway, you might as well, you know you don't buy a gum boot and go- oh, I got the cheap one because you know it wasn't waterproof.
Speaker 2:I think it doesn't work that way. So, yeah, yeah, I'm finding it a little bit clunky myself at the moment. Um, I was trying to turn white papers into interviews and it's just. The annoying part is that it gives you an american accent. So, you know, for the apac region it's just not gonna work. Um, but I'm curious to know what you know. What have you trialled so far? Like what specific AI tools that probably do have more potential?
Speaker 1:Oh, look, I mean like, I think, the ones that we've been looking at, because there's different platforms that are already out there that you could then plug into what we're doing, and it's a matter of would it be better for us to plug into theirs or go back to the source AI behind that and create our own?
Speaker 1:So we're just sort of exploring those different ways. There's a couple of clients who have oh, not clients, sorry a couple of other organizations that I've seen out there that are doing some stuff and, like, on one hand, I want to put them forward as a suggestion, but on the other hand, I was kind of underwhelmed by where they're at. Suggestion, but, on the other hand, I was kind of underwhelmed by where they're at. So I wouldn't want to wait until they're good enough to then say, oh, I think these guys are good, if you know what I mean, which is no, I don't mean to cast aspersions on them, but it's more just like I just don't feel like the technology is quite there for the use case that I would use it for, so I don't.
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, no, absolutely. I've definitely had that same experience. I do look forward to seeing what happens in the future, though. Coming back to leadership, you did mention strategy as well. Is that something that you set at the top level and then everyone absorbs, or do you tend to get your team involved in the strategy of the organisation?
Speaker 1:I do both. I think you have to do both. I think there's no point, like you've got to lead and you've got to. You know. I think, yeah, I think you've got to set the tone for what you want in terms of the business to be, both with your team but also with your clients, like these are the rules of engagement, this is the way, these are the values that I have, that I hold dear.
Speaker 1:I've worked in companies whereby my personal values weren't aligned with the values of the business necessarily, and that was, I think, the hardest time of my professional career by a mile. Like it is awful. So I feel incredibly privileged to be in a position whereby I can have that alignment. And I don't think, you know, I feel really lucky to be able to do that, because it's not a common thing. And I think it's really, really hard for folks when you've got, you know family and you're trying to wrestle all the different things of being a grown up and you're having a job that you have to do because you need the cash and it's not aligned with your own personal values. Like that is the pits. And so for those who are still wrestling with that, like respect for continuing to do it because it is so problematic.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, for me, given the good fortune of being able to have a business that is doing well, and to be able to have that be in alignment with my values, means that I'm not going to bugger that up by either having people work in the business that don't have the same approach or allowing a culture to start to filter into the business that is aligned with that.
Speaker 1:And, conversely, if you set a strong example like that and you nurture that, then people naturally want that themselves as well, so they gravitate towards that, and then it lets them be who they are in that authentic sense and build out the values that they have, which are aligned with the broader ones of the business, and then that echoes out into then the clients that we have, because clients often, you know potentially might be working in an organization where they're not actually is aligned with what they believe in and they can work closely with them. Then it can be kind of an antidote to whatever they might be encountering in their daily workload as well, and then it nurtures that and builds that out, and then you can, you know, just keep it expanding. Does that make?
Speaker 2:it does. Yeah, I was just thinking as well. It kind of informs the culture of an organization as well, because you know pure personal values are X, y, z, and then that's kind of communicated down and you know if everyone on the team kind of agrees with those values or is on board with those values, that then kind of sets the culture in a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, like it's not, like they're particularly complicated, it's about respect, it's about autonomy and trust. Yeah, and you know, and being authentic, like you know, just tell the truth. If it's good or bad, just tell the truth, be respectful about it and let's do stuff. You know, I mean, start Beyond's vision is to be able to help people see the world differently and to be able to do something that is a benefit to the world. So that's the big play. We're going to be authentic, we're going to be respectful, we're going to get on with it. Those are the values. Yep, sounds nice. I mean, the interesting thing would be, if you ask the team, and I think that, in different ways, they would say the same thing back. I would hope touch wood, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That sounds like good values. Actually, I like that. All right, a bit of a challenging question. What's one decision that you have made in the past 10 years that felt risky at the time, however, turned out to be quite important actually?
Speaker 1:Yes, well, look, I mean, that's an interesting one.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about this and there was a big client that we had pretty early days on where we had to take a bath to get that client over the line, and it was a strategic play of like, all right, this is, you know, in the long run, you know this is not it's a lost leader, but it will, you know, ultimately be worthwhile, which it absolutely has been, and they've been a wonderful client and we've built out a really, really great working relationship and it's worked for everybody and so that's been excellent.
Speaker 1:And that was with St John Ambulance. So we built out CPR and first aid training with those guys. It was early days and it's like, wow, like if we do this and it doesn't play, this is going to be a disaster, as it was. That risk was one that I'm extremely glad that we took and we built it out for St John Ambulance, victoria, and the success of that CPR and first aid accredited program then meant that New South Wales, queensland, the whole country has now taken it on and we now have over 10,000 Australians every month completing their training using our platform with St John. And, yeah, that would never have played if we hadn't made that jump way back when.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it kind of set the scene in a way, didn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, very much so yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing. And then vice versa. I mean, what failure or challenge in your journey do you now look back on, thinking that was actually an essential learning?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean I think, like you know, making sure that your business is aligned was an essential learning. I mean we touched on that before and I think dovetailing into that is also that point of making sure that the work that you do is the work that you want the rest of the world to see, and I think that those two things are absolutely critical. Thankfully, we've never done there's no work that's out there that I'm not like happy to put my name to, like I'm proud of it, but there's certainly work that was out there that wasn't aligned with our broader strategic vision and that ate a lot of momentum and money which, with the benefit of hindsight, we could be so much further down the track if we hadn't split our focus and done those things.
Speaker 2:I think that's actually a common problem. I think a lot of people can say that you know, everyone's probably put work out there where they now go. Oh, you know, I kind of shouldn't have done that, but that is an essential learning in itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sort of the layer above that or below it. However you kind of look at it was. The learning is actually not the work itself. The learning is making sure your exec team are totally aligned and having the hard conversations at the start, like because if you're not, you need to call that early.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing I'm sensing from you is that you know another value possibly in the organization is like family or work-life balance. Have I got that right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean life's short, you know. I mean, come on, we've got to make sure that you're going to spend a lot of your professional, a lot of your life working, and so it's got to be fulfilling and it's also got to be balanced with making sure that the other aspects of your life are fulfilled as well. And I'm a big advocate of the team having creative projects or ancillary projects outside of what they're doing at work. I think that that invigorates you. I think that having things that sit outside what you're doing at work from a professional or career creative perspective is critical. You know we've got a lot of devs in the team, so you know it's great when those guys are on the weekend building out their games and they're thinking about how they want that to play. Or you know they're taking us to some obscure little dev VR. You know underground games, beers and games kind of night, and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:I love it, you know. I mean I wrote a novel whilst running the business and I loved having that individual piece where you're just writing a book and you're not having to collaborate. You're just a single idea that you're executing yourself, and that was a great counterpoint to the role that I have, you know, within, start Beyond. So we've got filmmakers, we've got designers, we've got cartoonists, we've got game devs, and all of those skills make them better at their job as well as make them more fulfilled outside of their work. And likewise, you know young families, four-day weeks, flexible hours all of those things are important because people just want to do good work and they want to be good at their job and they want to be able to love the people they love. So it's not that hard to have those two things coexist.
Speaker 2:No, I couldn't agree more. This is actually a very important value of mine as well. I think work-life balance family. But yeah, I mean you also work in creativity. So you know, if you were just to make someone sit in an office from nine to five, I can't imagine you know creativity flowing in the same way it would if they were to go out and do those things you just mentioned on their weekends and have some fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is, I mean, like within the business, there's very different personality types and people find creativity in different formats. And you know the directors of our 360, you know live action content, working with actors and all the rest have a different genre of creativity to our developers who are coding up the platform that's then delivering that content. So you know, you, you've got a that folks have their own avenues for self-expression yeah, no, absolutely so, as someone who does value that balance.
Speaker 2:um, do you have any life hacks for us that you can share? Maybe around creativity and sparking creativity, or maybe even around time management any hacks at all, oh?
Speaker 1:I mean this is so the life hack that I have right now, which I'm just loving, is like I play soccer. I play soccer with a bunch of grumpy old Greek and Italian men. I'd never played soccer. I played it when I was six or seven, and then I hadn't played, and then I was coaching my kids team and you know, and all these dads and moms are on the sideline being experts as their 12 year olds run around or their eight year olds. It's like man, I'm sure it's a lot harder than we all think.
Speaker 1:So I thought, bugger it, I'm going to learn how to play soccer. So I started playing when I was in my sort of early 40s with all these old blokes, and so I learned from them what it was to like. I was the newbie, I wasn't the expert, and I learned a lot about how I learned, but also how you know you're getting old school teachers, you know, basically a whole bunch of Greek men yelling at me in Greek that I'm a malaka and I don't know how to play soccer and I'm like, yeah, taking it on. So it was really useful for me to be not the expert and to have that experience of working out how do I make this work and how do I play. So I guess the life hack is do stuff where you're not in your comfort zone, outside of your work, so as to then better appreciate what it feels like for those who aren't feeling necessarily in their comfort zone at work and how you can help them in that, because I think doing that for me was really valuable.
Speaker 1:Um, and and I learned a lot about leadership by being the person who's you know, being given an earful, and now I'm reasonable. I don't get yelled at nearly as much. So, yeah, it's been good. And then the other ridiculous life hack which is just because it stemmed from playing soccer was I injured my ankle last year and, like the physio, had all these apps and all this business, which was just driving me crazy. And I never do exercise Like I'm like a dog. If there's a ball I'll chase it, but otherwise I'm not going to do any of that stuff. Um, and then I realized that one of these exercises was you had to stand on one foot to keep your balance.
Speaker 1:So now, whenever I'm on an escalator, I only ever go on the escalator on one foot and I have to try to keep my balance for the whole trip and gamify the escalator and now I feel like I'm being fit all the time, like I'm like oh no, this is my rehab, so that's my life hack stand on one foot on an escalator.
Speaker 2:I love that. I was trying to teach my kids that when they come home and they're like, oh, this is too hard, I don't want to do it, and I'm like, yeah, but how are you going to learn and grow this? There's no way that this is, this is the way through it, and I think adults need to realise that as well. A lot of us are in a comfort zone and we do need to push ourselves further. And you know, learn to grow and you know open ourselves up to potential failure and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, there's something amazing about when you're a kid like things really matter and then as you get older, you sort of incrementally through design perhaps, I don't know make things not seem to matter as much, or when they matter, it's not as cut and dry. But I think actually finding things and going right, for the next 90 minutes, the only thing that matters is chasing that ball. Yeah, there's something clean in that.
Speaker 2:I love that, angus, guess. My last question for you, one that has become a bit of a tradition on this podcast, is if you could go back in time and give yourself one bit of advice. Um, what would it be now? This could be maybe at the start of start beyond, or it could be way back before that.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to be a business one, it can be personal as well ah, look, I mean, I think, I think that the piece of advice that I would give myself and I and I would readily to anyone who would listen give, give now is give yourself the permission. I think people spend a long time not giving themselves the permission for whatever it might be, uh, whatever thing they want to pursue, or they they just they don't give themselves the permission to to do that. And takes a long time before people grow up but sometimes you don't ever. But, yeah, give yourself and make excuses, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:There was an artist who you know, when I worked in the music industry it was early days and they said that and it just really stood out to me because at the time I had things that I wanted to do that I wasn't doing because I hadn't given myself the permission, because I was like, oh, you know, I won't be good at it, or I'll fail, or you know something else is more important, or there's all these reasons why you don't do it. Just, goddamn, give yourself the permission and goddamn do it.
Speaker 2:I love that. I think we can all relate to that. We're always making excuses for something just because it's probably too hard or we just don't feel like we're going to be good enough. You're right. If you phrase it in a nice way, it's not like. Usually I hear people going, oh, you know something, I need to try, but give myself the permission. That just sounds like, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, yeah, amazing Angus, thank you so much for being on the show. I think we've learned quite a bit. I'm definitely keen to go out there and see what we can do with VR in terms of, you know, making our content a little bit more engaging. So I'll definitely be reaching out to you for that. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:No, my absolute pleasure. It was fun.
Speaker 2:And no, my absolute pleasure. It was fun and, yes, definitely reach out happy to help, will do.
