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Transforming the Game with Kristina Katsanevas is the podcast for game-changers, risk-takers, and industry shakers. Don’t hate the player—hate the game? Not here. These leaders are rewriting the rules. From high-net-worth entrepreneurs, founders of Australia’s most iconic brands, and those disciplined enough to keep stacking those habits to success. We dive into the minds of pioneers innovating in media, business, fashion, sport and transformation.
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Kristina Katsanevas (00:00)
caught my attention was you cooking in your apron at three in the morning for your toddler. Is that real? No, absolutely not. Today's guest is Frank Reef, chef turned entrepreneur who sold his tech company RealBase for 180 million at just 29. He's been featured on the AFR Young Rich List, host of the podcast, Chew the Fat and co-founded Founders Table, an exclusive community connecting Australian entrepreneurs generating over 10 million in revenue. He's raising over a million dollars for children with cancer research through his cookbook.
Eat With Purpose and is now building a new app set to lead in the AI digital era. Get ready to learn from a powerhouse who's turning success into purpose-driven impact.
I've come to this realisation over the last couple of years, I'm obsessed with business. I'm absolutely obsessed with it. I never get upset by it because I realise there's probably a reason in that person's life that they felt the need to write that comment or send me that DM. What did he know that you didn't know? I took the view which was, hey look at this business, it's so great. Here are the great numbers we're doing, here's where we're going, it's going to be amazing, blah blah blah. The way you actually should be positioning is you're looking for a b**** to acquire you.
Quick favour, over 60 % of you that are regularly watching this podcast and enjoying it haven't yet subscribed. You know how this game works. If you could subscribe, like and follow on whatever your favourite platform is, I'd really appreciate it. Your support helps me more than you ever know. I'm able to get more interesting guests that are able to add more value and help transform your life. So thank you so much for supporting and being part of the game. Frank, welcome to Transforming the Game. I've been very excited to have you on my show. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
You caught my attention. I've been following you for a while on your socials and you actually, what caught my attention was you cooking in your apron. It didn't look like anything else at three in the morning for your toddler. Is that real?
No, absolutely not. Thank goodness because you made me feel like a terrible mother. That's what we call the internet rage bait. It's highly effective. Well, on this occasion, it did work because you were like cooking duck and I was like, who is this guy with your tagline of your 180 mil? And that's sort of what started the snowball effect of me following you and watching you and on your journey.
So I want to take, I want to go back for anyone listening who may be a bit, ⁓ not know who you are or haven't seen you online, but let's go back to what is it that Frank is all about? ⁓ Jesus. What am I all about? I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be like a go back. It's been pretty consistent, right? So like I, I, I, I've come to this realization over the last couple of years.
I'm obsessed with business. So I'm absolutely obsessed with it. Why is that? Because it brings so many things in life for me that brings me a great deal of joy. So I'm a people person and building a business, then get to create a place where you get to hire people and the exact people you want to hire. And so you're surrounded by legends and then you're having fun.
You get to ⁓ learn through the process and probably most importantly, like you change and you evolve or I change and I evolve through the process. ⁓ so first and foremost, like for me, I love business and that is what I'm about. ⁓ Secondly, I'm a family man. Like I'm a, I'm very simple in terms of do my business life. And then my weekends are very much like my wife, my three year old son, and my very soon to be a new, fresh little daughter, which is exciting. Congratulations. Thank you. ⁓
And then beyond that, it's like, ⁓ can I use the knowledge that I've acquired and hopefully through the content, is part silly and parts informative, ⁓ inspire other founders to be able to make an impact on the world. do like your content you're putting out there. For me, and this is what resonated for me because I am big in the tech world and I do love people too. So I've got that blend, but...
watching you, seem very authentic, very real. You're a bit of a clown, which I appreciate. appreciate it. Right. You're not afraid to just throw egg on your face. And so what is it with your branding strategy that you're trying to do to cut through the noise? Clearly you cut through it with me, but do you have a plan or are you just like, I'm going to throw it up in the air and see what sticks.
⁓ bit of column A and a bit of column B. So when I first started, so I didn't have Instagram beyond two years ago. So I just didn't have, ⁓ I just, I just didn't really do the whole social media thing. and I purposely was like, okay, I'm going to build a personal brand cause that's going to add, you know, it's going to help with, you know, the eat with purpose cookbook. It's going to help with my next businesses and so on. And so when I first started, it was like pretty clinical. was like, you know, business lessons in 45 seconds. And I think anybody who knew me, was like,
I can tell this guy's blames like that's not the prank. I know. then, and then, and then before you knew it, I was kind of like, you know what? Like, I'm just going to be like just fully me and I am, you know, I think there would be a very startling difference between that person on the screen and then the reality of me. ⁓ like we in our office continuously laughing, making jokes that are like probably a little, get a little bit too on the edge and a little bit too, you know, a bit like shouldn't be heard by people. And then I just started going, you know what? Like realizing that, ⁓ there is more and more saturation.
And being me, is like the shock value, I guess, is like, you know, the tagline number, the big sale, but then willing to do stuff that no one else would be willing to do. You know, sometimes the further you go along in the success ladder, the more you want to put on like a bit of a, yeah, a bit of a like, you know, I have to live up to this thing where I'm kind like, well, no, I get to be just fully me. And actually through that process, I get to inspire others to be like, wow, if that guy who's like an absolute clown has done well, then maybe I can do well too.
I think that's really real and raw. that's the thing, cutting through and being authentically you because it is getting more and more filtered with AI and the way the world's going, everyone feels like it needs to be perfect the way you...
or the copy you put out there has to be perfect. mean, people are writing scripts using AI avatars to speak so that they're changing their eyes to look at the screen, right? And I mean, even before I was doing an intro and I'm like, I'm going to read this and ⁓ you know, they can say, we can see your notes. I'm like, I have notes. I write things down, I have notes and that this is life. So sometimes it's good and I think it works rather well. And I think it's more more important that you stay authentic and to anyone else because
It's getting harder and harder to get the fakes out there. Wasn't where I was going to start, but let's go down though. When we're talking, if we stay on the social media side of things, you've said you've only done it in two years. Don't have the stats on my phone, but I think you've, you've done pretty well for a two year account. Right. So clearly, so clearly being authentically you is working. What's your thoughts on all of the, like you're competing now with the fakes and the people who buy followers and buy likes and buy comments. Like what is your.
your thoughts around that? So I don't put too much thought into that. here's my thing. ⁓ The personal branding is very intentional. I have no desire to be famous. I have no desire to be like to have the warm blanket of like, people know me and like me and respect me. Like, how nice is that? ⁓ None of that means anything to me. Like I'm very confident in myself. ⁓ I have an amazing family. ⁓ And that's so that's what matters. So so
To me, is like the reason I care about engagement, let's say, is because ⁓ what I'm talking about is resonating and it's adding value. And so my favorite thing is like, again, I don't care about the 3000 likes, but it's the DM that someone said like, Hey, I just want to let you know, I implemented this. This is the change it's had like, like really appreciate it and keep on keeping on and like getting those messages each day. That's the stuff that actually matters. Or someone's like, you know, I was on the fence. I've started a business and now I'm at a million dollars in revenue. I just want to say thanks. That's the shit that matters.
You know, seeing someone else's 60,000 likes, I just don't care. Like I've even had those conversations internally. like when we were having, you know, we'd have, ⁓ know, content strategy days and the team would like, what about this? And it's like, well, the purpose of that piece of content is purely going to be like a, ⁓ numbers and it's not going to like resonate to the audience and it's not going to talk to our audience. And we literally tell everybody like, we're not here to be famous.
You know, we're here to deliver value and the engagement is important because it means people care. ⁓ But it's far beyond the kind of numbers on the screen. So you're very intentional about not doing just what, because the stuff that will unfortunately get the likes, the viral usually isn't that positive or great. And so it's not about that. That's good. So if I go back to go back to the beginning, built a business, three brothers and you're South African.
What was that household like? Three boys, entrepreneurial. What was it like growing up in the grief household? ⁓ It definitely didn't look like that. I mean, three boys, I assume everybody who has siblings knows it's just like arguments. And I was the youngest. And so like, wouldn't say there's like bullying, but there's like, you know, the natural amount of bullying that I imagine. that's just the
Like I already see it my son right now. And so like none of the entrepreneurial stuff showed its face in those early days. I, eldest brother was quite a far gap between him and I. So like I used to, you know, obviously adore my older brother. I'd want to go and watch him play PlayStation. And so I'd sit outside his door and hide so he couldn't see me. And then he would notice that I was watching and then he'd be furious and slam the door. So it's not like we're chatting about business or anything like that. And so it really only happened after.
All that. Now the reason, you know, I've, shared before, but the reason, ⁓ we were, guess, ⁓ commercial or like numbers focused is because of our upbringing. My dad had gone bankrupt. ⁓ and so, you know, conversations about money around the house was very normal because everything was about like how good of a deal you can get and those kinds of things. ⁓ but the entrepreneurial piece only happened when I was
19. ⁓ By that time, I'd actually ⁓ moved out of the house. I was actually with my older brother. We owned an investment property together, an apartment back in the day when you could buy one of those for 400 grand. ⁓ And, ⁓ and then it was just, yeah, it was just like a one day random conversation. Like let's start a business. And I was like, okay, let's do it. Yeah. love that. It's like a bit of curiosity, a bit of courage and let's ⁓ So working with, working with your brothers, that's, that's a
either is going to work or make or break, right? The family dynamic. When it came to building blocks for the success, because you've seen great success, which we will go through, but what were your initial building blocks for success when it comes to the integrations, the system and the culture to maintain and accelerate momentum when it came to, you know, what you're doing? went from signage. Why did you move to Melbourne? Yeah. So that was just like right at the start. So that first conversation, my brother said,
Um, he knew a real estate photographer in Melbourne and that real estate photographer said, Hey, they, my client needs real estate signboards. And he was like, Oh, Frank, should we go start a business and do real estate signboards in Melbourne? And that, that was, that was literally it. Um, and so we just did that for a year. Yeah. Okay. And then you just came back to to your question. So what, what, I think, you know, whenever I sit here and I do the reflection, cause now it's like 12, 13 years ago. Um, and you look at it from like a.
top level view, it probably looks like this perfect game of like strategy, boy geniuses. ⁓ It was literally nothing like that. And so there's a concept of culture or systems and all those kinds of things like those just didn't exist for the first six years. The things that gave us momentum or for me individually was like absorbing lots of content.
So I had no mentors, had no one that I learned from, because I came from a kitchen to then starting business. And so it was just like continuously absorbing content that would be strategically beneficial for me in the near term. And so whether that be sales or whether it be like how to be a leader, whether it be, you know, like how to do marketing, was just like, I was just continuously ingesting as much information as I could. And I still do to this day, you know, slightly different where I point my attention to, but.
that's been like the through line the entire way through. And so to then answer your question about like the culture and stuff is like those things started to happen when we started to scale and then go like, okay, this is breaking. This is not working. Like, what can I do better? And then where can I learn that information? So it sounds like you, you're really good at pivoting fast and, ⁓ you know, not, not afraid to fail. Probably got some of that in the kitchen where you had to pivot fast. If something was missing or you've got to, you've got to move on. I'd imagine that's quite an intense.
intense environment to be in. But I actually read something interesting. I read your book. This is like, PS, eat with purpose. Eat with purpose. One, took too long to get to me. though, it's like a business textbook with a recipe book. So I kind of love that. But what I actually wrote a note on is that, and tell me if I read it wrong.
When you guys started building your business, your parents were in a similar, if not competitive business. And because of that conflict, they actually had to close their business. And then, as good sons do, because I've got two boys and I feel like if you're in a good family, dynamic boys are very protective of their mom. So that for me must've been an incredible
motivator for all three of you. Like when you're talking about how do you keep going when it's hard or whatever to have that pressure was that. yeah, yeah. So, so let me, I'll, I'll, I'll paint a little bit more context for the listeners. Um, so, so when we first started, we were in a franchise. Um, our parents were in the same franchise, but we had no like, um, business dealings with one another. It was just like, they had a photography franchise. We had a sign board and a brochure franchise.
We did that for five years, for four and a half years-ish, and we realized the confines of the franchise weren't going to allow us to get to where we wanted to get to. And so that was the moment we decided to pivot from like signage and brochures into tech. And so then we decided to launch our own brand, and we did. And then obviously my parents are still in the franchise, they're still doing their thing, but because of our decision, their master franchisor canceled their contract.
And that was like a day before they were selling their business for a million dollars. My brother's. Yeah. Yeah. My brother's I had already made a decision when we, when we're kind of conjuring up this idea, we were like, what is the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario is mom and dad will lose their business because of the, a lot of people get always get confused by this and I understand why, but it's just like, it's like the association, know, the franchise master franchise is always like, well, obviously they're your son, your children. So obviously you must have some reason that they're going and becoming competitors.
And so, yeah, so they took away, ripped up their franchise agreement and overnight they lost all of their income. And so then my brothers and I made a decision, which was like, if that happens, we'll make a promise that will pay them back that million dollars. And so, and to answer your question, a motivator, I reflect often had that not happened, we wouldn't have had the outcome we had because that meant there was no, there was no like ifs and buts about it. Like if I didn't feel like making a cold call, I'm not like, oh, okay, I'll just, you fuck it. I'm just like.
Well, no, no, our parents have gone, like lost their entire income. I better do what is required. And that was the same with all the brothers. So was like consistently pushing even up in the point up until the point of sale. It was kind of like every extra dollar I knew was like, we're to be able to give back. And so there was definitely a huge driver that intrigued me. And I was like, well, not only did you pay back the million, you gave them equity share. So it was almost like a cashless acquisition or merger. Maybe I don't know how you'd.
like for your parents and then they got a substantial amount more than your million, which must have just filled your heart. That just would have been amazing, especially being such a big businessman. So let's talk about the sale then. Only 0.1 % sell over 150 million. So you're a bit of a unique specimen. So I've been told. But with great power comes great responsibility. So what is...
your thoughts on that wholesale? Is it what you expected? Is it nothing? You know, everyone has a dream out there, the founders of like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to have a nine figure exit. Was it what you thought? The process, I think I went in very naive to the process. So our advisors, like the deal team,
said this will be the hardest thing you do in your life. It's going to be really challenging. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds cool. Whatever. And it was, and it was, so I wasn't expecting what I got. What I got was the easily the hardest year of my life. don't know if I'll ever experience something that challenging. think even if I sell another business, it's just a very different dynamic because it was like your entire life's
I mean, like at that time I had no investments, I had nothing. And so I had a net worth in my bank of 20 grand. And so you got this entire thing riding on you to make this ⁓ outcome happen, as well as it cost us $5 million to sell the business. And so if it didn't go to plan, we would have just lost all that money. And then I've made a terrible decision and the rest of the shareholders are upset with me.
Um, and so there's like this, the cognitive attacks of like, you know, all the work that is required. And then this is emotional load on top, which is the hardest of them all, which is, you know, for me, it was, you know, things like, didn't tell any of our employees. So they only found out the day the deal closed on the stock market. Um, you know, I had, you know, you can't talk to anybody about it. No one else has gone through it. So it was a incredibly challenging time, but the best thing ever, because then I learned so much through that process. Like I literally.
I changed so much in a year and I had so much growth having to go through that. be honest, you triggered when you, actually, again, you're very transparent online and you'd put the five million that it cost you for DD in the sale. And since then I've spoke to another founder who sold his company recently and it came up again. I'm like, you're the second person within two days. He's talking to me about the cost to the seller. Now I wanted to emphasize that because I feel like a lot of founders or even, ⁓
Especially because as you know, there's a like, there's a big transition of wealth and a lot of older people who might be thinking of selling or wanting to sell. But they're also I feel maybe a little naive and ignorant to that it will cost them some money to sell your company. But what what were the lessons there? And maybe was that 5 million because because of your ignorance? And is there ways that people could
maybe start preparing their company now to not have to have such a, what do we call it, an exit bill? Yeah, absolutely. So I think I'll break down the costs a little bit. So key to note is there, if you have an advisor or someone who's like helping you with the transaction, that's a percentage fee. And so that's going to be a cost regardless. And so for us, it was a 1 % fee. So was like two, 2 million, just over 2 million bucks for that advisory fee. So that's proportionate to the size of the exit, which is important to note. But then the rest of the fees are probably 2X
to 3X what it would cost most people. And so the important part to realize is because we'd gone through this merger, it was kind of like you were selling multiple businesses. So like KPMG said to us, this is the single hardest deal they've ever put together full stop. And that's a very big firm and that's a very big call for them to say. it's just because of the sheer complexity. So you ask the question, what are the lessons? I'd say the really important lessons through this process was,
You know, in these early days of business, you're not yet thinking that far ahead and that's totally fine. However, you can start to do things straight away, like make sure you are doing all your documentation correctly and make sure you're housing it. Because at the end of the set at the time through the sale, they asked us, okay, we need to see back legal documents and tax things for the last 10 years. And then you're scrambling to go like, holy shit. like all data classification. you finance your legal, your, your, your
everything, everything. So like, so like down to the most minor details, like, you know, for example, I remember one of the D D questions was like, you change your business name in 16 years ago. Can you explain why, know, that, like that level of detail. And so that's, that's part of the, you know, all of those things. If you house everything that's a, you know, that, um, know, legal changes, uh, financial changes, you house all of those things correctly.
that'll save you a lot of time. So part of our process is we have to go and retro ⁓ actively go and create agreements. So the merge company we were part of had a number of different like joint ventures. And those joint ventures are like on the idea of, know, like, we don't need a, we don't need an agreement. have a handshake, which is really cool. And that's really cute. And it's awesome. But when it comes to selling a company, no one gives a shit about your handshake. They want to see a document.
And so we had to create all those documents. And so I think it's just like, if you just have the mindset, which is like, let me just do everything correctly upfront, that's going to save you like orders of magnitude of cost down the end. 100%. Don't be lazy. I'm big on the data and the documents and the classifications and things like that. Um, but you do, come into a lot of small businesses and they don't, or they're just the creative. And so a lot of the time with founders, they are just the creative and.
then don't care as much as you say. But let's go on that you dabbled there on the 1 % for your advisor. Now, going back, cold LinkedIn DM, I get plenty, you must get so many. And if they start with hi, and like, just leave it there. I'm like, don't you hurt me just by even having to have a one in my message. Yeah, Clear it out. But James Yee, I think he's named us. Yeah. He got your attention.
So he had a high signal and he had a high impact message. What did he say that got your attention? can't remember exactly the words, but it was something to this effect like, you know, Hey Frank, I've been seeing what you guys are doing with RealBase. You've built really strong business. ⁓ I believe that we could sell your business at the moment. Would you be open to having a conversation? And then he said, here are some of the recent transactions we've done. Social proof, social proof, social proof. ⁓ Would you like to talk?
And so, you know, I think it was right place, right time. ⁓ Yeah, because I had already gone through the process for the last four months prior to him reaching out of trying to sell it myself and kind of come to the conclusion that it was the wrong time to sell. And so I was like a worst case scenario. I talked to him and, and let's just find out what he, what he says. And so I looked back at it the other day because I was doing a post about it. ⁓ and so he sent it like, I think it was like 4pm the day and the next morning, 9am, I responded and we met the following day and then.
That kicked off the process. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like, that's obviously in your DNA as well. But with that, what did he know? Cause you just said you'd been trying to sell for four months, which obviously isn't something you done. Well, said you'd sold one, not at this scale. What did he know that you didn't know to get you a nine figure and got him a $2 million payday? Absolutely. I wouldn't mind a call to a $2 payday. So much. think, I think one of the things is, um,
⁓ Selling a business, your own business, is a bit like selling your own home. So if you try to sell your own home, like even a real estate agent will not sell their own home, they'll get a real estate friend or colleague to sell for them. And there's a reason why, because you're too emotionally attached to this thing. And so you're not going to be able to have like unbiased proper negotiations on the behalf of your home. You're just too close to it. And so same thing, I was trying to sell my own thing.
And I'm far too attached to be able to do that correctly. Part one. Part two is ⁓ I took the view which was, ⁓ hey, look at this business. It's so great. Here are the great numbers we're doing. Here's where we're going. It's going to be amazing. Blah, blah, blah. The way you actually should be positioning is you're looking for a bigger company to acquire you. ⁓ Your numbers are like a rounding error in their numbers.
And so, you you take the example of Domain, they do $330 million revenue, we're earning $41 million. That's cool, you know, that's a 12 % uplift, but it's nowhere near as cool as when you say, hey, this is how we can help your strategy. So by acquiring us, we can create revenue synergies and uplift in your company. And then you take the $41 million, and now you add the synergies that you can get on top of it, and now it's a $100 million uplift.
and that becomes a lot more interesting. So I had no idea about that. And so it was all about me and our business where it should be about their business and how we can help their strategy. Which is kind of a good theme for anyone in business just with customer and everything you do, right? Where it's not like me, look at me and look how great my product is. It's like, this is how I add value to you. That's really interesting because it's I'm very interested in the exit or starting to exit.
things like that and helping businesses actually prepare their business five years in advance, two years in advance to exit. It's not, and just getting people's awareness of what they need to do. So you've had your nine figure exit. You go on for the 10. I'd to. Kinzo AI, pitch it to me. God. Okay. So in the simplest form, Kinzo is going to be an executive assistant.
to high performing business operators. And so the challenge we have is when you type that into Google, it's a very noisy crowded space. And so we're going after a very specific problem. The problem exists that in today's world, you have email, you have Slack, you have WhatsApp, you have LinkedIn, you have Instagram, and you have all of these messaging applications, which right now are completely in silo of one another. And business actually happens across platforms, right?
And so what we're going be doing is Kinso is going to aggregate all of those messaging platforms into one space. We are going to have deep, rich context over you and your relationships. And from that, we'll be able to infer your goals as a user. And then we're going to prioritize things based on your goals. So instead of opening up five applications, and like you mentioned there, the LinkedIn DMs and all the nonsense, instead you open up one, you then have it stack ranked and prioritized based on your goals.
So you only go to one app and you know that if I look from top to bottom, it's in the way that I would normally logically go and solve for them. And then what we do is called opinionated assistance. So how can we help you, the business operator, make decisions you maybe would not have made? And so I'll give you an example. If in my world right now, if you looked across my life for the last four to six weeks, a big focus of mine has been on raising capital and hiring senior engineering talent. Now I get cold DMs and LinkedIn, probably 20 to 40 a day, roughly thereabouts.
And often people say, hello, would you like a coffee? And I ignore it. However, if we enrich that person's data set from what's available publicly, and then we say, okay, this person's actually a senior engineer from Canva. And then you open up your app and say, Hey, here's a person right up your top of your priority list. And here's why you should care. That's what we're doing.
A person or a business? It's an individual. It's a person. if you think about it, and these are all a series of hypothesis, so it'll be fun to listen back later and go like, so wrong. But here's the thing. What we're doing, that's a huge trust gap. You're inserting all of these different messaging applications where stuff that's also personal lives in there. ⁓ You would never do that in an enterprise. So if you worked at a big business and they were like, cool, all all of our employees now put in your WhatsApp, you'd be like, no freaking way.
And so we're focused around the individual operators. So whether that be like founders of businesses or, you know, like execs at small to medium enterprises, it's not your, not your big enterprise play. And that's very strategic too, because all of the big, ⁓ like chat, GBT, the open, all of them, they're focused on enterprise. And so it makes sense because enterprise has a hundred billion dollar total addressable market. We're going after a much smaller market, but because the business operator, the individual, their context lives on regardless of which place they currently work at.
Right. So the, relationships, the goals, your, your, your context lives on beyond those workplaces. And so we'll be focusing on them. Okay. That makes sense. Cause I've been trying to, be honest, work it out. ⁓ and I'm like, we've been kind of intentionally vague. Yeah. Which makes sense. Cause you don't, can't put, you can't put all your chips on the table. Otherwise everyone will just copy it. Cause I was like, well, there's copilot and that you can speak to. And, ⁓ I've done big business cases for that sort of.
work in big enterprises. So I know the value and the ROI is and what you're up against. They've got 15,000 developers daily. The changes are phenomenal. And then I was like, is this safe? So it would be for someone like me, who I've got a few hats, but then personally, I've got a personal brand. And then you've got my LinkedIn, which isn't in my enterprise, which can do all that.
And you're saying it goes, I'm just paraphrasing back so I understand. Instead of just all the highs I get, which I delete and ignore, that this would actually go and troll them and see if they're actually worth it. maybe they're just socially inept and don't know how to.
string together a conversation. As an example, or you might have ones, you know, like I have lots that are really detailed and really great. However, it still doesn't align to my current goals. And so, you know, I, right now I had to just miss them completely. ⁓ and there's, there's, there's that goal that lives in there that we can go and help that person to go like, here's why you should prioritize it, regardless of if they've done a good job or not of writing the, the writing the copy. But that's kind of like the starting block. So for us, it's like,
How do you enter a space that currently no one is doing? So that's the unique thing we're doing right now is there is no application that aggregates your messages. And there is a reason why, because it's very, very hard. My tech head goes, my gosh, the integration from all of those platforms. It's going to be a nightmare. ⁓ And so it's really, really hard. And also it doesn't make sense for enterprise. So that's the reason it doesn't exist. ⁓ And so we want to start there, but then beyond there, it's like, well, then what else can we do on the behalf of that operator?
that then makes it feel like you're right there by their side. And so I'll give you an example of some of the crazy things we've thought out. It's like, okay, we can see in your diary, you're going to Melbourne or you've come to Sydney. Well, I know usually when you come to Sydney, you stay at this hotel, which I can book the flights for you like me to book the hotel. We start to chip away at what are those tasks of an assistant to that particular operator. And the reason we believe we have an unfair advantage to play is because we will have a deeper, richer context of that user.
And because a lot of these tools have come out and they're like email specific, email is only one part of the puzzle for the human. And so we believe by having all of that, we can have better, deeper ability to actually work on your behalf. Yeah. So if you could like hook into my Qantas and my Virgin for me, because like even now ⁓ I was looking, I have quite a lot of trips coming up and I'm like, did I book that
honest, Virgin, like Flight Center, I'm like booking.com. I'm going through five different travel things to try and work out where I'm going next. So even take that as an example, right? So the beautiful part is once you have aggregated all these messages, you don't think the same experience when you talk to Chachi Pati, you just use natural language. And it's not like a Google search, you just type in something and it goes, okay, here's the answer for you. Because we've aggregated all of those messages, you might be like, I remember I was connected to someone recently who was an HR person that was interesting. I can't remember the name and I can't remember the platform.
you just type that in and we can find it. Yeah. know, cause we can, we were searching across all of your stuff and you're just using natural language. So a lot of power comes in that aggregation. mean, the one thing that people are it's time poor or they're not very good. So anything that is going to help someone and get back an hour here or get back a few minutes here is obviously of very value. And then if you learn, teach it how to cook for me, although I do like cooking. but you know, maybe hang out the washing and stuff.
Vsweet. Where do you see this then if you have it all in the next five years? Like is this a five year plan, a 10 year plan, a three year plan? Like we've thought a lot about this. It's really, ⁓ it's very contrary to the way we thought at Real Bass. So Real Bass was very much like, I don't think about selling. I'm in this, we're going to conquer this and like we're going to do it as long as it takes to be the number one.
Pinyon has shifted this time. And the reason why is the world is moving so fast. So if we come into this and go like we're going into the kill zone, you know, you've mentioned things like co-pilot, like you're going into a space that's highly competitive and you go like, I'm looking to build a generational business that I'm going to hand down to my son. Like you're delusional, right? Like, because it's going to move so fast. And so I think this time we're like, how do we get to a bigger outcome and do it at a faster pace?
And so whether that be five years, whether it three years, like the years don't necessarily matter. It's more around the, the pace that we must like have within ourselves to like realize you cannot, we don't have a spare minute. We have to go. And I think that's most important this time around. It's just like the urgency around every single step ⁓ is like.
what's on my mind all the time. I'll message my brother on the weekend. I'm like, Hey, I'm pretty anxious this weekend. He's like, yeah, he's like, me too. He's like, I'm stressing. I'm like, man, I'm stressing. Cause yeah, it's hard. It's bold and it's hard, but like you'd be learning lessons and you move at fast pace. And I believe that is from everything I see and everyone I talk to is kind of the key to success in anything you're doing is like, how many times can you fail before someone's still thinking about the idea? So good luck. I'm excited to watch.
watch what that happens. know you're going, you were, think you may be loosened a bit on going the capital raising journey. Yeah. So, so here's the fun part about me as I'm very transparent as I pour my water. So here's what we've got to, we've got to uncover over the last four weeks. There are three primary things that doesn't matter ⁓ who it is, whether it be an investor, whether it be a new potential employee or there'd be people in the market have been saying, cross number one, this task is too hard and you will not be able to do it.
Number two, we don't see the problem. So like, why would I want to connect to my LinkedIn, my WhatsApp, my Instagram? That makes no sense. And number three, you're one feature away from a co-pilot, a chat GPT, Google Gemini crushing you. And so to answer your question about the investors is we had a lot, a five different no's from some of the best and brightest VCs in town. Now,
post that, so we had one that said, Hey, we'll do that. We'll do, we'll do a check for you. And now we're kind of like on the fence a little bit. Cause when we're just unsure, we're in a special position where we get to just do our own, use our own capital we've done so, so far, and we can continue to do so. But this is like the, this is the fun thing that I've got to re-remember about building a business is like, you know, you look at a Melanie Perkins Canva, she got a hundred nos or 99 nos before she got a yes. And I just have so much respect for the ability for her.
to get that 97th no and go, okay, I'll go to my 98th. Like how she did that. Cause like after five, we're like, I'm done with this. Like, I'm just going to move on to like doing, cause you have to like, if you're doing something meaningful, was talking to a guy yesterday, Charlie Gearside, co-founder of eucalyptus legend. And he just said like, he sees no's from venture capital as the perfect signal. And you got to keep digging because the gold lives under the nose because they cause the venture capital, especially in Australia is very safe.
You know, he said like, by the time they say yes, you're of too late. And he said, you want to go for if there's people consistently saying no, it means you're seeing something that others are not and keep going down that rabbit hole. I go with Australians with the VCs would be too safe, always. And you're right with the Melanie Perkins, the 97th note, I guess the difference is sometimes when you've got nothing.
And that means your why has to be so epic. that's when they talk about the wire. I don't think people really comprehend when they go, I've got a white and that white has to drive you so hard to go and not, mean, that would have pivoted a bit, but as you said, you guys are a bit fortunate that you're like, you're still driven and you're like, well stuff is I'm going to keep going because it makes sense. you just need to get enough volume that if the copilot's come on, they'll buy you. I'm going to pivot a bit. Cool.
To eat with purpose, as I said, this was the initial thing that actually got my attention with you because I'm Greek heritage. So food is life for me. Love that. There's a bit of Greek inspiration in that actually. And put it. There is. So I went through and so your goal with this, why did you come up with this? mean, I know, but I want you to tell the story for people out there because I think it's actually a great book. It was pretty simple.
just before the exit was happening. ⁓ Again, I started ingesting lots of content and the content told me the same thing consistently. You're about to sell your business. On the other end of this is going to be this like gap of time. And a lot of people fall into like a depression. It's like that post Olympian who wins the gold retires. And then all of a sudden they feel a bit hollow.
And so I knew that was coming on my horizon and I was like, okay, well, I'm definitely wired that way. So how do I prepare for that? And so I started kind of doing a bit of soul searching and I went, okay, what am I missing these days as being a CEO of having people report to me? And I was like, creativity. love creativity. And in those later years of business, you kind of start, I started to lose it a bit. And I was like, I want to do something really creative. And I was like, but I can't just like go build another business because like, I worry that I'll get myself back into this like mouse wheel. And before I know it,
I'm like, why didn't I just take a break? Like, what an idiot. I'm like four years into the grind and I'm like hating my life. And so I was like, okay, I will use the skills I have, but I use it for outside of my own and I'll do it for something which gives me purpose and gives me something that can do creative outlet. And so then I started going to like a bit of a mission to go, okay, what would be a charity I could do it for? I met a guy called Matt Weston and we sat in a cafe. He shared me a story about a son who got leukemia at
I can't exactly remember. think he was age three and he found out on Christmas Eve and we, know, me and him were, um, openly weeping in a cafe. And I was like, yeah, he's similar age, you know, cares about fitness. And I was like, this like happened to him and it happened to me. And I was like, this is the, this is the mission. Um, and so that was like, in that moment, I was like, okay, cool. And then I was like, what am going to do? And I was like, I'm going to write a cookbook cause that's really creative. And so, and that was it. And then I decided to do one. And it's, it's full, um,
Yeah, sorry. it's Children's Cancer Institute is the is it where the million dollars are raising to. But again, the concept was for high performing business people, everything I do was about business. But and so one, all the proceeds go to children with cancer. So I was wondering where that came from. But it's a beautiful cause. I think it touches any any parent or anyone. The book itself is beautifully, beautifully done. I'm pretty proud.
challenged myself to pick something and cook it and videoed it and TikToked it. And I chose lamb with pearl couscous. A, Greek lamb, can't go past it. B, it was delicious. So I'll give you that. will tell you. It took you a bit longer. Or was I missing, is there a typo? Yeah. You have zucchini in your ingredients. nice. Forgot to tell you about it.
Yeah. Just didn't tell me what to the video? didn't. Yeah. So luckily every single recipe is videoed. Look at that. He's got a video. And for the ones that don't pan up, it's probably right there. No, I did chuck it in the couscous. Yeah. Great. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. Is that where it's meant to go? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. There's a few hidden gems in there. It's, what you're doing is just seeing if people are paying attention. Yeah, sure. But no, I advise anyone. I'm big on when I have time, cooking and food and good food. I love good food.
And I just think it's just how it brings people together. And if you ever come to my house for a dinner party, everyone's like, my God, Chris, you've gone stupid because there's so much food and I'm always worried I don't have enough. But it was beautiful. It was delicious. was, it was quick and I'm very, very, very busy. ⁓ so I did it in between a meeting, got the food out, cooked it, had another meeting.
went back and did it and it was and I felt like a bit of a chef. Now I will show you later what mine looked like to you. Not quite the picture, but it is a really, it's a really great book and I really wanted to give that a big shout out and I thought you did really well. You are a bit of a chef. And another thing that got my attention with you were your hate strawberries. my hate strawberries. Yeah. That you gave to your son, which obviously clearly you didn't really give to your son. But so.
With your hate strawberries for anyone who is listening, we're talking about trolling online, which for me, my gosh, is ridiculous, especially when all you're doing is adding value or having a bit of a chuckle. But how much, like, how do you handle? you are, are, know, in two years you've grown quite a lot. You put yourself out there authentically. Like I said, you can be a bit of a clown, but you're actually adding a lot of value if people actually listen to what you're saying. So how do you deal with that? Because some people...
really take it to heart. How do I say this? Like, think, okay, here's how I'll say it. In my nature, being the youngest child, I have grown up with a probably an over-indexing on empathy. And so I'll give you a great story. I remember so clearly, I'm probably six years old, maybe seven years old, my brother, you know, just closing in on teenage years, you know, little argument yells at mom and dad, I hate you. They probably didn't let him do something really random like go skateboarding. And I run up to my mom.
I'm just crying and I said, mommy, he doesn't hate you. He's just upset. You know, like, which is really strange for a six year old kid to do that. And so I think, for me with these kinds of things, I never get upset by it because I realized like, there's probably a reason in that person's life that they felt the need to write that comment or send me that DM. And so I don't really like, it's kind like water for the ducks back. And then also I'm very comfortable in my own skin and realize the way social media works is like, you're getting served a single piece of content.
which has no, you have no context of me, the human, and you're only seeing that one side of me. And so the ones that I get the hate on are ones that like are for entertainment purposes only, which is like cook a meal while I cook for my three year old son and I'm just being silly or a day in the life video, which those Ghana, you know, like a million views.
And so your only perception of me is through that like 55 seconds. And if you don't understand the satire, then that's always when the hate comes in. So I just go like, I'm sweet. They're fine. there's no actual, they don't actually hate me. I'll be fine. They don't get it. And so I just, I just move on. And then I have a bit of fun with it. Cause then that makes it way more fun. saw a great interview with Jimmy Fallon and he was saying when he was getting
larger because his whole goal his whole life was to do the tonight show. And that's all he ever focused on you was going to do it. But he also then said he wasn't prepared for the hate because his whole goal was to make people love it's to bring joy and all of sudden he's getting hate. he just has boiled it down to some people are just self appointed like chief of hate. And that's what they job is in life. You just
You can't give them energy and you can't, you just really can't care because they literally, doesn't matter what you They'll just be doing back to back. Like it would be the literally their time. Yeah. Yeah. They're just firing them off. Yeah. It's the same with, if you want to go super big, like Mr. B said the same, he's out and giving like millions and was fixing people's eyesight and was getting hate. goes, I get hate on it. And people are like, you're just trying to get views. He's like,
He goes, and then I go and bury myself alive for seven days and that gets millions of views. goes, just, honestly, the human race. It makes you wonder. Anyway, I think that's important because you hate strawberries. quite giggle at them every time I see someone trolling someone and I'm just like, you just have to hate strawberries and dig it. Something else you guys though, to sort of counteract and bring more of a community together as you guys have created. You and your brother have.
brothers have created the founders table. Now that's a bit of an exclusive 10 million club, but I have seen you cooking. Yes. Do you really do that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the, what's the purpose behind that? What are you trying to get out of that? So there's a couple of things. ⁓ number one, ⁓ where it started was this concept of, if you've ever heard of, ⁓ the PayPal mafia in America. And it was, so what it was is that the founders of PayPal, everybody will know them as like Elon Musk, Peter Teal.
Reed Hoffman, all of like the heavy hitters that have then gone on to complete, like do all of these amazing businesses and like revolutionize America. It's like LinkedIn, SpaceX, Tesla, ⁓ Palantir, like, like just all of these mega companies. And so there's a concept called the PayPal mafia. Cause what it was, was every time ⁓ the next business was created,
someone in the PayPal mafia would then go and help another founder or invest in the founder. so there's like this online graph where you can click on a business like LinkedIn and you see seven PayPalians are in part of that business in some way, or form. And Jack and I were like, man, that's so cool. Like, what does it, what does that look like in Australia? And we were like, what if we created our version of that? And what if we had a little black book that had every founder in Australia would met them. know us over $10 million. Now the $10 million is like very strategic. The reality with these things are.
⁓ you know, if you have something that has this, ⁓ the feeling of exclusivity, gets more eyeballs and then you have the ability then to like, what can you do for the less than 10? ⁓ and so we do, we do the, $10 million for lunches. And so I host them at my home. I cook for everybody. ⁓ we do that every week. ⁓ weekly.
Yeah, yeah. You guys are a glutton for punishment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then we do, um, like these fireside chats and they're open to anybody. So if you're thinking about being a founder or your early stages, whatever it is, and we'll put together like the last one we did, we posted about one Instagram story on a Monday by, uh, Wednesday morning, we filled up a hundred people in a room and we did like a fireside chat and it's a better, it's,
better for that type of audience because the founders table is eight people on a table. It's very intimate. You're having conversations. For early stage founders, it's better for them to like, you know, have fireside chat, able to ask questions rather than like all just try and talk. And so then we're creating a community, like a network of people and it has no cost, no agenda. But the last piece of the puzzle was also very strategic from Kinso was we were like, how do we get the best beta users?
that will believe us, trust us, we've built enough goodwill that when it comes out, they will understand this is brand new product, but give us feedback, like how do we make this product amazing? And so the idea is by the time we launch Kinso, we've already got, we've cycled through roughly 800 founders who've put their hand up to be on the wait list, who will then be like really willing to give us great feedback to make sure that Kinso is amazing. I'm on your wait list. yeah, I love that. I'm on your wait list. I can give a good tech video.
Yeah. Okay. So that, that fireside, I think that's really, that's really nice. And then it's really strategic of you as well, but it's important that people can ask and just get in your ecosystem too because you can build people up or most people know it can be quite a lonely journey. just, like that PayPal thing. was listening and read Elon Musk's book and how, you know, when he was about to go under with Tesla, was PayPal that came in and saved him. We're going to do a pop quiz. Okay. Very good. Are you ready?
for your pop quiz. First thing that comes into your head. Question number one, best pump up song to motivate you? Lose yourself, Eminem. ⁓ good one. Favorite quote or saying?
A ship is safest in the harbor, but that's not what a ship's built for. What do think? Favorite brother, or Jaak? No comment. ⁓ come on. Both. All right. I'm to go with Jaak Jabi Morn. You stuff more. How many times did you cry before and after your sail?
Before five times after once. Is that alation? Not really. What was the first thing you bought when the cash hit? My house. ⁓ sweet. Yeah. The weakest exercise at the gym. My legs. Squats. Sydney Beach workers. Weakest side of you in business.
Probably like deep financial. So the accounting side. Veggie mud or peanut butter? Definitely peanut butter. Absolutely. Koalas or pythons? Koalas. Who are the top three people dead or alive you'd have on your imaginary board in business? Alex or Mozi?
Steve jobs is not, no, you have three. ⁓ Elon Musk, just to, yeah, just to round it out. Just to see, Like I was, ⁓ watching something on someone who knew him and you've heard the, you know, the signal noise thing and just how he's just.
no one's more dialed in. Yeah. He would hate being on my board. He'd like, what the fuck am I doing here? He'd like, this is the lamest thing I've ever done. I'm like, well, you're on. ⁓ I put it there. Not really your choice. with Steve Jobs' ghost and I like cool mozie. That's because he'd be my like my content wizard. I was trying to well around the balance there. Product obsessed one. Yeah, product. And then to the manufacturing to the
Content. you go. Yeah. had to be well balanced. Some people just go, they're like, that's good. All right. So if we're going to close this out, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you. For a founder out there who's going, they just want to talk to you and go, Frank, I have an idea. want to go from zero to wherever they want to go. What are the steps to success? Do not say just take a step.
Like, but what is something that you're going to tell them to go right? If you have forgotten everything we've spoken about for the past hour, go and do this today. Here's the biggest one. Content and learning can be a bit like mental masturbation and it gives you a sense that you are, that you are doing lots and it can give you a sense of fulfillment. And you go like, wow, like today was really action packed. listened to three podcasts and read a book.
The reality is actually doing nothing and doing the thing is actually what is important. And so the first thing I would say would be ⁓ anytime you listen to something, great, but go implement it. Go do something with it, at least one thing. The next would be realize that pace and speed in business is above all else is probably your number one most important thing. And how do you shorten the time horizon between an idea and doing and continually compound that?
Cause if you can do that and you reflect back, you know, over the course of five years, you can get 10 times further than anybody else just by doing things and shortening the time horizon it takes between. So if you're a first time founder, you're like, okay, I want to start a business and you spend the next four weeks on your logo, you're doing it wrong. You know, how do you spend the next hour on your logo and then do the next thing and the next thing and next thing you can double back around and realize that especially for a first time founder, like getting things 70, 80 % right is more than enough.
Cause your view of what perfection is, is not yet grounded in the realities of the market. And so just move. Yeah. I think people need to press back and listen to that again. Done's better than perfect. And your reality of what's perfect isn't in the market yet. 70, just mark what you think is perfect. Go 70 % and aim for that. I feel like people really need to ingrain that in done's better than perfect. mean, everyone could be a bit of perfectionist, but I see it so many times where it's said so much, but then they're still not moving. Cause they're like, no, I need...
perfect backdrop to take the picture of my product. We'll just take a flipping picture and stick it up online. That cookbook's a really good representation of like how I think about business. So every one of those recipes you saw in that book, we're done over six days. So we did it from my kitchen, myself and one person, every single recipe in six days. So I created the recipes and I cook them each day. We did 10 recipes back to back. We would then run down to my garage, do the photography ourselves.
I would do the food styling. We'd run back up and we'd do the next one. We'd do nine for the day. Then the reason you find a typo in there is because I'm not that attention to detail. And it's because you you can, you can do a lot if you just, if you just move really fast and even the recipes, some of them, came up the night before while I was standing at Woolworths going, what's the recipe I should make tomorrow in my cookbook. And I made it up on the fly. That's amazing. That's amazing to know. Cause I was curious. you, are they yours? Are they your recipes? All mine. Yeah.
And the fact you even made them makes it even more special. As I said, they all look so delicious and I did choose one. It was really yummy. That's the biggest thing for people to realize. It's just like how much more can be done if you just run at the problem and just don't overthink it. Run at the problem. I love that. I love that. Yeah. It's really good. And it doesn't matter. You can make up that you don't even put the zucchini in the recipe. Well done. Well done on that. That's amazing. The food's amazing.
⁓ I like that you put in that your third space for anyone, like your mental space, your hour of the day was cooking for your family. That's kind of pretty cool, in my opinion. Come cook for me. Mine's the gym, swimming. Mine's, I have tech, so that's me, space. Give me my space. ⁓ But I liked that and I think that was important too, so I might end with that because you were saying how, you haven't said it here, you say it in the book, is to decompress from work. And even when people go work-life balance and then...
but in their heads they're thinking that's work and then it's family. But when you're building a business, that third, what do call it? The third space. So the idea is like, and it's a bit of a lost art, the third space for most people used to be, you go to the office, you get in the car, you drive home for 40 minutes or you're on the commute, and that's the third space. When you get home, you're ready to be like fully present with your family. Then a lot of people work from home and they're expected to go from like,
thinking about business, thinking about work, thinking about their job, and then walk upstairs and now all of a sudden family mode, you haven't had a third space to be like there with your family. And so for me that was cooking, because I have to be intentional. I can't look at a screen. I'm using my hands, my hands are busy. And so then that's an opportunity to like decompress and be in the moment. It's also activating your right brain, which is known for high performing people to, if you can transition to creativity.
and pick something that's creativity, it actually will help you in business. ⁓ Jim Keys was saying it a lot. He will go and play the piano and he goes, knows concert pianists who won't play because they're trying to go for perfect and he will go and play that. So actually I jumped on the piano recently and was playing and then my son jumped on and ⁓ he's got a talent. So we did a duet. learned Heroes Never Die and then we played it.
And we did, but yeah, so that's very important. like that. third space Frank, it's been a pleasure. It's been an honor. I really appreciate it. I know how valuable your time is. I know you've got a very busy day. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for transforming the game. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.