Where are some of the regulations that you're trying to change? Where are you pushing to get some of those regs changed?

Yeah, the biggest ones, particularly for crowdsource funding, is the ability for venture capitalists and crowdsource funders to exist at the same time using the platform.

Internationally, as I said, a venture capital firm can raise money on a platform.

in Australia can't use crowdsourced funding to raise a fund.

And I think that would be a massive unlock if we were able to get that changed with regulations.

So there's lots of nitty gritties.

With any regulation that comes in, and it's only eight years old, there's going to be unintended consequences.

But I will let you get into a early stage deal because that's what you youngins want to be.

But you were able to navigate some of these things, both with payments infrastructure and then actually setting up a digital app-based bank.

Yeah.

So it's been a journey, to say the least.

I'll take you through the journey.

Once I got back to Australia and had done the baptism of fire with enterprises, that's like almost working for the enemy because the startups are really disruptive and looking to create new products and new industries and go head-to-head with the incumbents.

The secret to success, certainly in Australia, was partnering with those incumbents rather than going head to head and just trying to beat them.

Sometimes you can beat them, and that's great.

Just how disruptive this wave of AI is to some of our most successful tech startups? Yeah.

But you were able to navigate some of these things, both with payments infrastructure and then actually setting up a digital app-based bank.

Yeah.

So it's been a journey, to say the least.

I'll take you through the journey.

Once I got back to Australia and had done the baptism of fire with enterprises, that's like almost working for the enemy because the startups are really disruptive and looking to create new products and new industries and go head-to-head with the incumbents.

The secret to success, certainly in Australia, was partnering with those incumbents rather than going head to head and just trying to beat them.

Sometimes you can beat them, and that's great.

Just how disruptive this wave of AI is to some of our most successful tech startups? Yeah.

Why do you think we don't see more of that from founders that have come out the other end and have maybe experiences that we don't have and-

I think that, um, uh, what we need to do is for people that, like us, that recognize the value in that and have been the recipients of that, we need to reach out to those people and ask, right? So I'll give you an example is that one of my business partners along the journey was Marty Howe, and Marty was the, um, co-founder of realestate.com.

And when I met him, I think they were number one, two, or three in 18 countries.

Um, and I actually had met him when he first started it, but then when I sort of got together to become business partners, um, I was living in the UK and I was building, um, the first online property website in the UK, and he was in Australia building the first one in Australia.

And so I came back looking to raise capital, and I, you know, m- met him and, and talked to him about, you know, whether he could help out, blah, blah, blah.

Years later, he was, um, in hospital and he wasn't replying to me.

And he, to me, he was a famous person that was, like, ghosting me, you know, ignoring me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But like first person to go to university, you know, like first person to go overseas, first person to do all those things that you sort of take in a privileged lifestyle as you just take it for granted.

And my kids will take that stuff for granted.

But, you know, I certainly, I never experienced anything like that.

So for me, the people that jump out is number one, my mum, and probably a story I maybe haven't told before, but is that we had nothing.

We're very poor.

Um, but my mom, uh, had a golden purse and it was literally a golden purse and just, you know, could open and there was always money in it.

And there's a real difference in the mentality around it.

What I then found really fascinating was, well, what does it take to do that? What kind of culture do you need to build? What kind of people do you need to attract? You think about banking as a career, it attracts people who want to manage money and manage risk, and now we need to attract people who want to tell stories and who want to take risks.

I mean, this is so exciting.

Like, you know, we have a full-time illustrator on, on team.

Um, you know, we have a full team that are just doing design.

Um, we have a, a team that just do merch.

As the team grew, it's so exciting and, and, and the...

I would say there's a, a bunch of elements.

Mm