Ep219 – Stirling Mortlock (Co-founder – XV Capital) on the journey from Wallabies Captain to Sports-Tech Investor

The Startup Playbook Podcast Insights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep219 – Stirling Mortlock (Co-founder – XV Capital) on the journey from Wallabies Captain to Sports-Tech Investor August 28, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep219 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Stirling Mortlock. Stirling is one of Australia’s greatest ever Rugby players. He’s a former Wallabies Captain, World Cup player, and one of the few players to score over 1,000 points in Super Rugby. But his story goes well beyond the field. After retiring, he’s built a career as a founder and investor. Today, he’s the Co-founder of XV Capital, where he’s backing the next generation of sports-tech and performance-led startups. In this episode we dive into: Lessons from professional rugby and how he’s applied them to his career post sport The rhythms & role clarity behind high-performance teams A resilience playbook: “feed the good wolf” through injuries & setbacks Where sports-tech is heading And much more! I’m also excited to announce that Stirling will be joining The Komo Club as a speaker for Cohort 2. The program is the world’s first human accelerator, designed to help high performing founders and executives implement the right system and frameworks to help them succeed in business and all areas of their life. You can find out more at thekomoclub.com Timestamps: 00:02:15 Career arc: Brumbies mainstay, two World Cups, captaincy at Brumbies/Wallabies/Rebels, transition to life after rugby. 00:07:08 Obsession with sport, MJ as childhood idol, and setting audacious goals back in Year 11. 00:09:31 Overlooked early, late physical growth, and training like a pro at uni: why hard work fast-tracked selection. 00:12:07 “Outliers” & relative age: flipping a potential disadvantage into a slingshot advantage. 00:15:00 Seizing rep opportunities: NSW Country vs City, shadow call-up 00:18:44 Keeping belief amid uncertainty: mentors and the power of goal-setting. 00:27:26 Inside high-performance teams: weekly rhythm, role clarity, and leveraging strengths under pressure. 00:30:24 Captaincy lessons: delegate to strengths and always do your job lead by example. 00:32:28 Turning ADHD into a superpower; creating environments where people operate at their “optimal frequency.” 00:48:37 Future of Sports-Tech 00:59:38 15 operations & the “feed the good wolf” framework for setbacks; silver linings during rehab. Our partners: A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on. Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Stirling’s links: Stirling on LinkedIn XV Capital People mentioned: James Godfrey Gordon Ogilvy Mark Davis Phil Waugh Jeremy Mortlock Chris Malone Andrew Walker Tim Horan Jason Little George Gregan Stephen Larkham Joe Roff Chuck Carter Mel Brown Companies & Organisations mentioned: Prevent Biometrics ACT Brumbies    Melbourne Rebels Wallabies (Rugby Australia) Gordon Rugby Club Rugby Australia Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) British & Irish Lions Resources mentioned: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep219_-_Stirling_Mortlock.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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