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🤝 Building Sales Teams, Scaling Startups & Personal Branding. An interview with Scott Leese, Fractional CRO & GTM Advisor.
🍟 The Future Of Technology Belongs To One Man, Jensen Huang. Co-Founder, President & CEO of Nvidia. The man holding all the chips.
🎨 Unfiltered: The Creative Chaos Behind PostHog’s Success. PostHog spills the beans on hedgehogs, pivots, and the fun behind the brand.

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HOUSEKEEPING 📨

One thing I get asked about more than anything else is how I churn out so much social content, newsletter deep dives all while doing the job of a CEO at Athyna. Well—I have a content assistant. Think of an executive assistant but purely for content, research, network growth. All the stuff I am better off not doing. I am thinking about writing a deep dive guide on my processes. If I did, would you read it?

Now for today’s piece, we brought Dom Pym back. His first edition was incredibly popular so we are diving deeper with him today on all things leadership, strategy and culture. You’re really going to love it. Now, over to Dom!

LEADER DEEP DIVE 🕵🏻

Dom Pym, Co-Founder at Up & Founder at Euphemia

Dom’s been involved in numerous start-ups and large scale technology projects since the 1990's, in Australia and overseas. He is currently investing in startups through his family office, Euphemia.

Dom sits on the board of directors at Fintech Australia, and the advisory Board at Bendigo Bank, and continues to work on Up—Australia’s most successful digital bank, highest rated bank, and most trusted bank—after its acquisition. Up’s built to help #Upsiders spend wisely and save effortlessly.

Dom also co-founded Ferocia, a leading Australian software company, acquired by Bendigo Bank in 2021, and Pin Payments, Australia’s first all-in-one online payments platform, acquired by Checkout in 2020, and Clear Interactive, which was acquired in 2009 by NZX, operators of the New Zealand Stock Exchange.

Explain your philosophy around leadership? How do you think about it?

Well, first off, I'd probably say leadership is a collaborative effort. It's not something that any one individual can do particularly well in my view. It's great to be able to inspire people and set a 30,000-foot vision or mission. And it's also great to be able to surround yourself with the best people you know, to create something that's almost impenetrable in terms of fulfilling that mission. If you get those kinds of people around you, then you create a leadership culture. And the leadership culture, I think, drives the organization more than any individual leader.

There are certain roles like co-founder, CEO, head of product, or chief technology officer that make a material difference depending on that person's skills, capability, experience, and ethic. Their moral positions and all that do make an impact as an individual. But I would say it's the leadership culture we try to create that makes the real difference.

In terms of myself, my co-founder, Tomo, and I started the business with very complementary skill sets. He's 20 years older than me and has a different outlook, perspective, and background, but we're aiming for the same thing.

_{*Co-founder, Grant ’Tomo’ Thomas, was one of the most respected coaching in the AFL (Australian Rules).}

So I talk about the moral compass, alignment with the North Star, the mission, or the expectation that we're aiming in the same direction, and supporting each other no matter what. We'll still debate, argue, and transition to the best outcome. Instead of thinking that as a single individual can drive the ship, we focus more collectively on creating a culture of leadership. That culture can then bring everyone in the organization along with it.

How do you build culture?

I think that culture is the absolute cornerstone of creating a successful business. It can determine the success or failure of the business. Not everyone agrees, or tries to build a dynamic or robust culture, but for us, that's always been our approach over the last 25-30 years.

For Up, we put a lot of energy and effort into building the very best engineering capability so we could use software to solve problems, specifically to help the next generation with financial literacy. We have two main drivers: the people, their skills, experience, and ability to work together to solve problems with software; and our mission of helping the next generation.

Building a culture that aligns with these objectives is not easy. It involves surrounding yourself with the best people, and finding ways to develop that culture over time. I often say that we sold the company on our 10th anniversary—and it was our ten-year overnight success. It took ten years to build the culture, and it will take another ten years to maintain it. So, to answer the first question, that’s our philosophy on the importance of culture.

Regarding the rituals, there are many things we do, especially around values and behavior. We have agreed values and behaviors that everyone checks themselves and others on. You know you have a good culture when it rejects the wrong people, and attracts the right ones. The culture needs to be self-managed by everyone. No single leader or leadership group can create or manage a culture; it’s self-forming, like an organism, and is the sum of all the attitudes and behaviors of the people.

I learned a lot about culture from Tomo. We implement many of the strategies he taught us, which he used at the footy club or prior companies. We make sure to do these things every day, and we have predefined activities on a weekly basis, like Friday demos and Friday shoutouts. These allow everyone to share good or bad behavior in an open forum, fostering psychological safety.

We also have monthly and quarterly activities. Since Tomo left the business after we sold it, we call this 'Tomo time' in his honor. We congregate many activities around Tomo time. From the outside, it might look like a cult, but on the inside, it fosters a safety net and a family-like bond. This creates a vibe and momentum that shows the culture is working really well.

Do you have any traditions you swear by?

The Friday Demo idea is a hybrid approach to building a great culture and having an agile work environment. We need everyone in the business—whether they're C-level executives, customer support, engineers, designers, or product people—to share openly and transparently what they're working on to get us closer to our mission.

Every Friday, everyone in the company has the opportunity to present. We actually schedule it throughout the week. Whenever someone thinks, "Oh, I'd love to present this Friday," they just put a little note with their Up username, and the number of minutes they need. It might be two or three minutes, so I might put "dollar domain, three minutes."

Then, on Friday at 10:00 AM, we all get together and run through as many demos as we can fit in until 11:00. We set aside that hour every single Friday. I think it's a really great initiative because it means we understand what everyone is working on—from the CEO to the customer support team, the fraud team, and the engineering team. It's really just sharing anything you do. Sometimes I'll present an event or an interview like this, just so people know what I do with my day.

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How have you set goals in your organisations?

Part of the demo process is that the CEO will actually do a presentation to the staff on how we're tracking towards our overall strategy and objectives. This is done quite often to keep the team engaged, motivated, and informed. Of course, we have OKRs and KPIs and all the usual tools, structure, and framework. But the CEO's presentation, articulating "this is our strategy and here's how we're tracking towards it," is probably the most valuable tool we have. It's an asset we share across the organization with everyone.

We have a very transparent culture. All our documents are available in Notion, Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, or whatever platform we use. People can get more detail and ask questions. We encourage questions to the leadership group, typically the CEO, but also the head of people and culture, the CTO, or the head of product. We have a very open culture.

This goal was part of our presentation when we first pitched to the bank before setting up the joint venture. We've been tracking against that goal for the last five years and updating the staff as we go along. It's a metric that's simple to report—journalists often ask how many customers we have. But when the CEO can get up and say, "Here's how we're tracking towards the number of home loans, savings accounts, or customer engagements on a monthly basis, and here's how we compare against the rest of the industry," it’s more than just reaching a million customers. It's about getting to a million passionate "Upsiders" who love and engage with us. Storytelling around the demo is a great way to achieve this.

We also run a regular session called the ‘Bonanza,’ which is quarterly or bi-monthly. The whole company comes together, shares a meal, tells stories, and does activities together. It’s really awesome. We have another event called ‘F*ck Off Days.’ where you get a chance to engage in the culture and do more structured cultural activities. Some of the tools we use are ‘Stop, Start, Keep,’ or ‘Hero, Highlight, and Hardship’ exercises. These aren't mandatory, but nearly everyone volunteers because they want to feel vulnerable, contribute, and be part of the solution.

Events like the Bonanzas, demos, and F*ck Off Days all contribute to the culture and help people understand their job, and where they fit into the bigger picture. They show what piece of the puzzle they are, and how their contribution impacts the overall. On a high level, each team is self-managing. Whether you're a branding team, product team, engineering team, or support team, each has its own way of tracking towards those overall goals, objectives, strategies, and KPIs.

What do you do to get the best out of yourself?

That's a very good question. To get the best out of yourself, you need to stay healthy and motivated, both in your work life and personal life. There are many ways to approach this, but one key for me is staying motivated.

Every morning, you wake up and sometimes feel like hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep. In those moments, there's a specific motivational technique I use: get up, get dressed, and make the bed. It sounds simple, but this small action sets the tone for the rest of the day. If you live with a partner or family, giving them a hug and saying good morning also helps get you going and reminds you of your purpose.

Another thing I do every morning is write down six things I want to get done that day. Some people write down seven or ten, but over the last 30 years, I've found that six works best for me. I write them down on a piece of paper or in my phone because the act of writing helps prepare you psychologically to accomplish those tasks. Throughout the day, between meetings and other activities, I refer to my list to stay on track. By the end of the day, I try to check off those items and then do a little retrospective to see how I did. I ask myself if I achieved my goals and consider what adjustments I need to make.

I also ask my team to post a retro in Slack every day. In the morning, they share a few notes on what they plan to do, and at the end of the day or week, we review their progress. This simple structure helps everyone stay motivated and productive.

Being a nice person is equally important. If you're friendly and engage positively with everyone, it creates a reciprocal atmosphere of goodwill and motivation. When you're nice, people are nice in return, making it easier to achieve your goals.

So, to sum up, the two key tools I use are: be nice to people and make a list to check against. This structure is enough to keep you motivated. Start your day with a small, achievable task—whether it's making the bed, drinking a glass of water, or spending time with your loved ones. This sets a positive tone for the rest of the day.

Is there anything I should have asked you?

One interesting thing is that every year, we go to Tasmania as a family. We went there for our honeymoon, and have been going back every year for the last 25 years. We missed a couple of years during COVID, but that family time is really important to me.

Those trips ground me because, as a founder, you're on 24/7. Whether it's investing in other people's businesses, understanding industries, resolving problems, or working on financial literacy with Up, all of these can be draining. You expend a lot of energy striving for excellence every day.

Sometimes, you just need to sit down and read a book, watch a movie, hang out with the kids. You need something to relax and re-energize. If there's any question to ask, it's how do you achieve this work-life balance? How do you switch off?

Because when you're a co-founder or investor, it feels like every minute of every day you're on. You'll be on Slack answering questions, or getting phone calls throughout the day, or just generally never switching off. So, it’s essential to have strategies that allow you to go for a bike ride, kick the footy, or do something away from traditional work.

Interestingly, the best ideas often come in the shower, on the toilet, or going for a walk. When you get exercise, walk, run, or ride your bike, you have some of the best ideas about the business, culture, people, or recruitment—rather than trying to come up with ideas during defined work time.

And that's it! You can also find Dom on LinkedIn or checkout his companies Euphemia and Up to learn more.

BRAIN FOOD 🧠 

If you don’t know Uncharted Territories, you should. It’s one of my absolutely favourite reads. This one in particular—The Woke Pendulum—was really interesting. As someone who sits fair and square on the liberal side of the aisle, it’s been very hard for me to watch what the right would call ‘Wokeism’ because in a lot of cases, I find it hard to understand. And often, I find it pushes honest cause much farther away from what anyone should think of as progress.

This piece really lays out today’s debate, in what I think, it a very fair and unbiased viewpoint. Not everyone will agree but if you are interested in understanding the world a little better today, then this one will help you do that.

TWEETS OF THE WEEK 🐣 

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

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