Give It A Nudge

In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with David Kenney, the author of Epic Execution. With over three decades of hands-on experience, David has advised the who's who of Australian entrepreneurial fame, supporting tens of thousands of founders from early-stage ideas all the way to NASDAQ listings.David's journey into the mechanics of business began at 18 when he hitchhiked across Sydney to interview CEOs and uncover exactly what drives growth. He spent 28 years as a chartered accounting partner and has refined his sharp pattern recognition through top accelerator programs like Startmate, UNSW Founders, and Tech Ready Women. He explains how his systematic thinking helped early tech startups commercialize their ideas before the ecosystem even really existed. Instead of just delivering standard accounting advice, David focuses on getting People, Product, Promotion, and Profit right.We dive deep into his new book, Epic Execution. It is not a generic roadmap, but a complete Founder Operating System distilled into 24 pragmatic chapters. David spent a year crafting it as a series of tough questions founders need to ask themselves to test reality against their assumptions. He breaks down why pathological optimism can be a founder's biggest asset, but also their downfall if they let ego and the need for social media validation drive their decision-making.Steve and David also trade thoughts on surviving the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, the massive shift in commercial real estate with 750,000 square meters of empty office space, and how the rise of AI is forcing companies to be more human-centric. David opens up about his personal operating system too, from mentoring youth startups to his non-negotiable 6:00 AM walks and freezing ocean swims at Shelly Beach.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro and the authenticity of unedited podcasts01:54 - The 28-year accounting career and 30,000 founder meetings05:03 - Commercializing university ideas in the early tech ecosystem07:39 - Why pricing and capital allocation are the true foundations of scale13:08 - Leaving a major partnership to drive deeper advisory impact16:56 - Writing Epic Execution and forcing founders to ask hard questions22:05 - The philosophy that great businesses are bought not sold27:38 - Cash flow mistakes and the reality check loop for founders31:18 - Navigating founder egos and the trap of social media perception37:39 - Advising startups through the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic46:00 - Empty office buildings and the new era of co-working spaces50:38 - How AI is shifting knowledge work and the value of human connection57:27 - Mentoring youth startups and morning swims at Shelly BeachLinks:Connect with David Kenney → https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkenneyofficial/Epic Execution → https://www.epicexecution.com/Connect with Steve → https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegrace/The Nudge Group → https://thenudgegroup.com/Give It A Nudge Podcast → https://www.youtube.com/@giveitanudge/The Trouble With People → https://thetroublewithpeople.substack.com/

In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Dr. Mariam Martin-Mnatsakanyan, the Founder and CEO of AirLabOne. They talk about the reality of digitizing physical assets for complex, high-risk industries like healthcare, mining, and space exploration. Mariam explains exactly how her embedded technology takes existing legacy machinery and makes it intelligent and self-regulating. This autonomy is crucial for environments that are harsh or completely isolated, like microgravity, where human intervention just isn't possible.Building deep-tech hardware is notoriously hard. Mariam spent over five years bootstrapping the business entirely on her own, without traditional funding. She explains why she deliberately ignored early investors who didn't understand her vision, choosing instead to follow her own structured path. This resilience paid off when she secured a global patent for remotely accessing real and virtual scientific instrumentations, and later won major validation from tech giants at the Select USA Investor Summit. She also walks through her plans to expand into Southern California while waiting on a major grant that could see her technology manufactured in local clean rooms and sent into space.We get into Mariam's personal story, too. She traces her early career as an analytical chemist and pharmacology researcher , from hunting for male contraceptive drugs at the University of Geneva to breast cancer drug discovery at the University of Sydney. She opens up about the exact moment her own frustration with accessing lab equipment sparked the idea for her global collaborative platform. Steve and Mariam also trade thoughts on the loneliness of being a solo founder, the critical importance of industry validation over random advice, and why building new technology that pairs with old equipment is the ultimate sustainable business model.Timestamps:00:00 – Intro: From pharmacology researcher to deep-tech founder02:50 – The origin of AirLabOne: Making legacy machinery intelligent04:53 – Microgravity: Why space is the ultimate test for autonomous tech08:06 – How the frustration of drug discovery sparked a global patent13:03 – The lonely road: 5 years of bootstrapping without co-founders16:24 – Ignoring the noise: Why you shouldn't take advice from outside your industry19:00 – Winning validation at the Select USA Investor Summit23:20 – The pivot to scaling: Expanding to California and raising capital29:56 – Sustainability: Pairing cutting-edge AI with old infrastructure34:11 – Manufacturing locally and the wait for a major space grantLinks:Connect with Mariam → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariam-martin-mnatsakanyan-phd-4b0310104/AirLabOne → https://airlabone.com/Connect with Steve → https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegrace/The Nudge Group → https://thenudgegroup.com/Give It A Nudge Podcast → https://www.youtube.com/@giveitanudge/The Trouble With People → https://thetroublewithpeople.substack.com/

In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Tom, co-founder and CMO of Lawpath. They talk about the reality of scaling a legal tech platform to over 600,000 small businesses. Tom shares a staggering statistic: up to 120,000 new companies are registered in Australia every single month. He explains exactly how Lawpath built a system to capture that massive audience.Starting a business is hard. The standard three-year survival rate sits at a grim 51%. Most founders get completely crushed by the administrative burden of running a company. Tom explains why taking the legal and compliance work off their plates frees them up to actually build their products. This shift has pushed the survival rate of Lawpath users up to 65%. He also walks through their massive $10 million investment from Westpac, and why they doubled down on advertising during the COVID-19 lockdowns while their competitors froze.We get into Tom's personal story, too. He traces his early career from Spritz—a startup that went through a wild $40 million acquisition by Yahoo7—to learning strict brand discipline at Tom Waterhouse. He opens up about the painful jump from being an individual contributor to a scale-up executive. He even admits that the sudden birth of his first child right before Black Friday finally forced him to stop micromanaging his team. Steve and Tom also trade stories about maintaining an 11-year co-founder relationship, and why loyalty always beats cheap pricing in the Australian market.Timestamps:00:00 – Intro: Surviving Spritz’s $40M Yahoo7 acquisition05:47 – Learning strict brand discipline at Tom Waterhouse08:31 – The origin of Lawpath: Fixing the headache of business setups11:48 – Reaching 600,000 customers and the roadmap to 1 million13:51 – How to secure a $10M strategic investment from Westpac16:24 – Why 120,000 Aussies register new businesses every month18:56 – Market quirks: Why Australian clients value loyalty over a cheap price20:39 – The COVID pivot: Doubling ad spend while everyone else panicked26:19 – Leadership realities: How a Black Friday baby cured his micromanaging30:00 – Co-founder survival: 11 years together without imploding37:01 – The 65% survival rate: Why automating the back-office keeps startups aliveLinks:Connect with Tom → https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomwillisweb/Lawpath → https://lawpath.com.au/Connect with Steve → https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegrace/The Nudge Group → https://thenudgegroup.com/Give It A Nudge Podcast → https://www.youtube.com/@giveitanudge/The Trouble With People → https://thetroublewithpeople.substack.com/

In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Jacqui Clarke, ex-Deloitte Private Partner and author of Stop Worrying About Money, to talk about the single most important number 95% of people don't know: "What does it cost to open your front door?"With the cost of living skyrocketing and "inheritance impatience" on the rise, financial stress is no longer just for those struggling to make ends meet. Jacqui explains why earning more money rarely solves a spending problem and why even high-net-worth individuals are terrified of their own bank accounts. She breaks down the "Toyota vs. Porsche" mindset trap and why smart women often find themselves financially vulnerable after a divorce.Jacqui shares her background advising Australia’s wealthiest families and the brutal reality of the "ghosts" that come out of the woodwork when you leave a major firm. She also opens up about the "Orphan Club"—losing both parents in six months—and how it reshaped her view on legacy. Together, they prove that financial freedom isn't about how much you make, but about clarity, control, and honest conversations.Timestamps:00:00 – Intro: Steve’s 15-year history with Jacqui02:00 – The "Orphan Club": Losing both parents in 6 months08:00 – The secrecy of money & why families don't talk12:15 – Divorce & financial literacy: Why smart women get stuck17:45 – Leaving Deloitte: Bad leadership & the decision to jump21:30 – The exit: Non-competes and the relief of walking away24:40 – The "Ghosts": When former colleagues circle back30:30 – The Big 4 Model: Why the "magic" is fading36:00 – Writing a bestseller in 12 weeks (The 5am routine)49:15 – The 95% Stat: Knowing the cost to open your front door52:10 – The Toyota vs. Porsche mindset for young adults56:30 – Longevity Risk: Can you afford to live to 100?58:30 – Closing thoughtsLINKSConnect with Jacqui → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquiclarke/Stop Worrying about Money → https://www.jacquiclarke.me/stop-worrying-about-money Connect with Steve → https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegrace/The Nudge Group → https://thenudgegroup.com/Give It A Nudge Podcast → https://www.youtube.com/@giveitanudge/The Trouble With People → https://thetroublewithpeople.substack.com/

In this episode of Give It A Nudge, Steve sits down with Jevon Le Roux (CEO) and Tahir Rauf (CTO), co-founders of Keeyu, to talk about the single most expensive question in e-commerce: "Where's my order?" With 40% of all support tickets relating to delivery status and 56% of customers churning after just one bad post-purchase experience, the stakes have never been higher. Jevon and Tahir explain how they built a system to monitor 28 different failure points across fragmented software systems. This moves the industry from reactive resolution to proactive prevention.The results? A massive 90% reduction in complaints and a 29% drop in workforce costs for their pilot customers.Jevon shares his background in high-pressure retail ops where he saw teams spending half their day manually searching for orders. Tahir breaks down the technical challenge of connecting a "spaghetti stack" of legacy systems. Together, they are proving that while it takes 4 hours to fix a problem, it only takes 1 hour to prevent it.Timestamps:00:00 – Intro: The 56% Churn Stat & The Where’s My Order Nightmare01:58 – Jevon & Tahir’s background: From Fintech & Retail to Founders06:58 – The Problem: 28 failure points across 8 different systems08:35 – How Keeyu Works: Moving from Reactive to Proactive12:00 – The “4 Hours vs 1 Hour” Efficiency Rule15:15 – It Can’t Be Done: Tackling the integration spaghetti18:15 – The Pilot Results: 90% less complaints, 29% lower costs21:00 – Raising Capital & The Plug-and-Play Architecture34:00 – Steve’s horror story (and why manual support is dying)38:15 – Services as Software: Redefining the industry standard40:00 – The Founder Dynamic: Why Jevon said “I’m in” in one second42:50 – Closing thoughtsLinks:Connect with Jevon → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jevonleroux/Connect with Tahir → https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahirrauf/Keeyu → https://www.keeyu.com/Connect with Steve → https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegrace/The Nudge Group → https://thenudgegroup.com/Give It A Nudge Podcast → https://www.youtube.com/@giveitanudge/The Trouble With People → https://thetroublewithpeople.substack.com/