OHA Stay Connected Podcast
OHA Stay Connected Podcast
Haileybury Voices - Ben Sze (OH 2002)
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🎙️Welcome to Haileybury Voices, the official podcast of the Old Haileyburian Association, the show where we go beyond the blazer.
In this episode of Haileybury Voices, we go Beyond the Blazer with Ben Sze (OH 2002) - Co-founder of Edrolo, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Teacher’s Buddy, board member at Toorak College, WEHI Advocacy & Support Committee member, proud Haileyburian and father of three.
Ben shares his journey from Haileybury to the forefront of education technology, reflecting on entrepreneurship, leadership, mental health, resilience and the realities of balancing ambition with wellbeing. It’s an honest, thoughtful conversation about building meaningful work while staying human along the way.
✨ EdTech innovation
✨ Giving back to education
✨ Mental health, grief & resilience
✨ Fatherhood and perspective
An inspiring episode filled with lessons for students, alumni and anyone navigating their own journey.
Welcome back to Hay Liberty Voice. I'm Teddy. I'm Shaker. He's raised over 40 million in seed funding. 4-0 or 1-4? 4-0. Okay, that's a lot of money. So he is a co-founder of Teacher's Buddy. Okay, so he's taken advantage of AI. Yeah. Co-founder of Ed Rollo. Okay, so we're talking the Ed Ed Tech. Yeah. And he also sits on the board of Tura College.
SPEAKER_03Now he also sits on the board of a non-school or educational area. Okay. But we'll get into that in the podcast. And on top of all of that, he's a proud father of three. That's a lot of that's a lot of time being taken. So let's get right into this and see who we've got. Let's go. Ben Z. Welcome to Halebury Voices. Thank you for having me. Ben, let's start at the beginning. Your time at Halebury. What years were you here? And what stands out to you the most thinking back to your time at school?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I was here from 1997 when I uh started as a year seven student, and I ended up graduating and um being lucky enough to be elected school captain in my final year of 2002. Um in terms of what stands out, I've got a lot of great memories of my time at Hailebury. Um one that comes to mind is uh the bus journeys um and how much fun they were. Everyone's got a bus story spot. Yeah, um they were great, like, and what a great way to um get ready for school, but also you know, decompress before you get home um and have a bit of fun in the in the yeah. Um but I also got great like memories of um Bruce Lyons, Mr. Lyons are headmaster at Newlands. Um, you know, he took it the time out of his day, I don't know if it was every lunchtime, but it was a couple a week where he would actually serve up uh like hot dogs, and um like it was they were like crowd hit, like it was the only kind of tuck shop food we could get at in year seven and year eight. And like, you know, you think it don't think of it back then, but now you reflect and like he didn't have to do that, like but he as the headmaster did it because he wanted to get to know the kids in it under his care, and like I think that talks uh a lot about the uh the staff and their commitment and dedication to students at Halebury.
SPEAKER_02Do you remember a moment where Halebury really shaped you, whether it was a subject, a mentor, or even a friendship that stuck with you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I sure do. Um it was probably year seven, um, where you know I was quite shy and um still trying to find my feet and find my group. Um, so I didn't really put myself out there too much. I was kind of holding back a bit. Uh, and so I didn't strive too hard to get in like the A team for tennis or whatever, or you know, and and basketball. I wasn't too fussed about that, but um, with athletics, that was something I loved. And it came around and I thought, oh, you know, I actually didn't even try go to the first lot of tryouts, and then um I got dragged along. I I can't remember who who brought me to it, but I was waiting for the bars. Like, no, you've got to go try out for ass. Like, you have to. I'm like, okay. So I rocked up, didn't have my PE uniform. I was in my you know, school shorts and uh school shoes, you know, the leather ones that uh don't really move, they're kind of stiff things, and um yeah, lined up with people in their ass gear and um uh for a hundred meters that was, and uh yeah, won the race. And everyone looked around and like, who is this guy? Um and yeah, that was the start of my um I guess my Halibury athletics uh experiences, which became a big uh part of my time at Hailibury.
SPEAKER_03So Ben, we have a we have a saying, once a Hailiborian, always a Hailiborean. Do you still feel that connection to the school? I mean, does that still ring true to you?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, yeah. Um, you know, when I think about uh our friends, you know, my my friends uh and that friendship circle, like it's all be we're all uh it's all because of Halibury. Um so yeah, absolutely. Or you know, one's a Halebury and always a Halibury in that sense. And there's actually a couple of or there's one in particular, one of our good mates. He he went to Corfield, but uh we joke that um he should have come to Hailebury and he's actually a Hailiberian. And yeah, we have he even knows some of our year eight, like we had Mitzianis in U eight, and we joke that he always brings up, oh yeah, I was with year eight with Mitzi, and so that was pretty funny. Um but yeah, when you come back to the school, it's it's quite amazing um the the memories and emotions that flood back. And you know, the school is hasn't changed that much in 20 years, it has changed a lot, but um physically when you walk back, it it still feels um yeah, it feels like you're coming back to a very special place, and the staff here and teachers here make you feel extremely welcome as well.
SPEAKER_02And that ties right into what we say here at OHA. Thanks for staying connected. So, Ben, let's fast forward a little bit. Your life after school.
SPEAKER_03How did it start? And what were the first steps you took?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um my father was an accountant in uh early on, he was an accountant and he said that that was a great grounding for him to uh venture in the world of business. And so he gave me that advice. Like, if you want to, if you think business in uh inverted commons is what you want to pursue, maybe you'd be an accountant. Um so I thought, oh yeah, I'll I'll choose the courses that I will uh that will help me, you know, and um get that sort of grounding. But um at the time I remember there was a um uh a cadet chip uh uh from uh on offer from one of the big four accounting firms, it might have been PWC or Ensign Young at the time, and they actually came to the school and spoke to people. I missed it. Um and I found it about it too late. But um actually an ex-girlfriend of mine at the time, it was a friend, um, and her mum knew a partner at KPMG and said, Hey, um, if you're interested, can I introduce you to this guy? And because they also offer a cadet chip. And I went in, had sort of an sort of an interview um with this this senior partner at KPMG, and he got me in to a cadet chip program at KPMG. So straight after high school, I uh I got my license, um, got my driving license, you know, in January or something, um, and then started working at a large accounting firm um straight out of high school. So put on a suit and tie again. I think it has escaped that, um, and was thrown into the world of business that way.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Wow, that impressive.
SPEAKER_02Now Ed Rolo has been a game changer in the ed tech world. Can you take us through the inspiration, the challenges of building it from scratch and those moments where you thought this is actually working?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a lot to cover um you know on this topic. So after I um I completed the cadet chip with KPMG, towards the end of that, I realized that I I didn't want to be an accountant. So I started looking for other opportunities. Um and I did a summer internship, or was winter our time summer in northern hemisphere in Hong Kong at a private bank in Hong Kong, Barclays Private Bank, and really loved it, the the fast-paced nature of it. I did a little research project, and because I was an Aussie, they got me to look at the mining sector and the resources sector. Um, and so that was really interesting. And um I thought, oh, I think I want to get into this, you know, this the finance stream or the investment world. And so I started looking for jobs in that. Uh, even applied for graduate jobs, um, although I had one at KPMG straight after high school. That was part of the deal. You got guaranteed a spot. Um, and uh I was lucky to get a job, a pretty entry-level job at um at Goldman Sachs JB Weir uh on their uh on their private wealth management team. And that's where I met um my two co-founders Vedrollo, Jeremy and Duncan. Wow, and so we started on the same team and got to know each other because of that really well, but we had um a common interest in startups and technology. And um, going back a little bit actually now, uh, while I was at university, um I also did part-time tutoring because it was a great um uh job, cash job um in particular. Uh it's past seven years, so I don't have to uh don't worry about that. AGO doesn't have to do this exactly. And um and so that was and my sister was a teacher as well, trained to be a teacher. And so I kind of um I thought about opening a tuition center uh and just didn't get off my backside to do it. Um but that was kind of like the the that were the kernels of um of something there. And then I started um because my dad was working overseas uh most through mostly through my high school and even uh obviously um uh university as well, and we used to Skype call regularly. And so I was constant always on Skype, and at the time internet connections were very slow, and I couldn't can't believe we actually got a video feed sometimes, but it was always in and out, in and out. At least we could get the audio. And I just started thinking, oh, imagine if we could do online tutoring um and we could build like a marketplace and um so that uh students can find tutors, and tutors can can find students, and we'd uh help them conduct an online tuition um session on our on a platform that we we could build. And I shared that idea with Jeremy and Duncan, and it's that we started spitballing, and one thing led to another, and we're like, oh yeah, let's work on something like this. But what we the first thing we decided to do was actually it came back to our own learning experience as students, in we realized that um we had amazing teachers. Um, and obviously I went to Hailebury and my two companies didn't go to Haleby, but they went to other great schools, and we just started thinking about yeah, imagine if everyone had uh in my case, uh Christy Christy Rains at the time before she got married, Christy Kendall. Um uh she was my psychology teacher um for my first year 12 subject in year doing it in year 11. And I was like, imagine if we could get let every student in in Victoria in this case have access to to Christy and how amazing that would be. And that was the whole idea. So we we started we you know um that was the start of Ed Rolo, where we thought let's democratize access to amazing educators and just focus on the VCE to begin with, and that's how we got a start. And Christy actually was one of the first presenters um that agreed to work with us. Yeah. So Ben, Edrolo, what is it exactly?
SPEAKER_03Just for our listeners, what is it exactly?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So um Ed Rolo is a content uh provider, uh a resource uh creator for secondary schools in Australia. Um, it's a blend of uh digital and print materials. Um and basically uh they the curriculum-aligned content that's created for the year seven to ten curriculum in across Australia and then uh at the senior levels in uh Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, the VC, HSC, and QCE. Wow. Yeah, amazing. Um yeah, so it's had um it's had quite a bit of quite a lot of impact, and it's quite funny. Like um I was uh interviewed recently um for a press release that's coming out uh recently uh soon about my next business, and she let me know at the end of uh the journalist let me know at the end of our call that uh she had fond memories of actually uh using Ed Rolo as a student. Oh wow. And um yeah, and I and she remembered one of the teachers. He didn't he wasn't a teacher from Haley, but he's probably the best biology teacher in Australia, if not, I would say potentially around the world, um, Andrew Douch. And um yeah, we had a good little chat and giggle about that. So yeah, you you hear all these sort of stories of uh particularly it's been around for about 15 years. So um there's people that are out there in the workforce that I bump into and I tell them about at Roller, and like, oh, I use that, I remember that. And yeah, so it's quite funny. But yeah, we've probably impacted over uh two million students, I'd say, over the years. Um yeah, so it's yeah, it's been a wild ride.
SPEAKER_03Wow, yeah, bad it has. So let's fast forward now to teacher's body in 2025. Um with an AI twist.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So um bit of the story, I guess backstory for this. I um I had to leave Ed Rollo in early 2023 because I got unwell. I I basically got um a bad um strain of COVID. Um, that's my hypothesis anyway, and uh developed long COVID, and that manifested in chronic fatigue and pericarditis for me. Um pericarditis is the inflammation of the sack around the heart. So it was a quite a serious thing. Um and that led me to uh not being able to work or function like I used to. And uh at that time I had two kids, I've got three now, um, and had a had a rollout. We'd just raised over 40 million dollars for investors, and it was like go time for the business, and I was just dragging my feet like I I couldn't work like I I used to uh after that COVID infection. So I just made the tough call to leave um and rest and recuperate, and I did that over about two, two and a half years. Um, but that coincided with the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI, and so I'd naturally curious and was playing with that a lot. Um, and I didn't think it was that amazing of a technology um until um around December 2024. I came across a uh they call it vibe coding now, um, a tool called Lovable. And there's a few of them now. There's Bolt, Lovable, Riplet, um, and VZR, I think it's called. Um, but I came across Lovable. And for me being like a non-technical founder, I can't code. Um and um this product let me like a chat interface, like chat GPT, but it let me build a fully full fully functioning uh web application in like five minutes. Wow, like you can type in, it was like typing to an engineer, but um one that doesn't need that much information. Like you could say, create me an Airbnb for dogs, and it'll go away, it'll it it'll know what Airbnb is, it'll know that you're looking to house your pets, and it will actually literally build you uh that site. And like my mind was blown, and I was like, wow, if this is what generative AI can do for someone like me and like a um non-technical founder or just curious person, um, imagine what it could do in education. And so I started tinkering with, I started using the tools to start building some prototypes um for teachers, for students. Um, I was working with my niece for a little bit, like uh trying to help her with like build study study habits and things like that. And um I came to the conclusion that I wanted to build something for for educators at the end of the day, but I didn't know exactly what, but I wanted it to be um a suite of tools that would just help them do their job really well and uh I guess try and give them back some more of their time and um and um um help them feel a bit more passionate about uh you know there's why they got back into teaching and spend more time with their students. So luckily I was introduced to my co-founder, he wasn't my comer then, but uh a guy called Matt, who's now my co-founder at Teachers Buddy, and he'd actually been running Teachers Buddy for about 12 months at that time, had some traction. Um he was looking to uh raise some money from investors, and we hit it off. And I just said to him, pretty much in the first meeting, I think, I said, Look, do you want to try and see if we can work together? Or uh otherwise, the alternative is we both go away and build our own things and compete, probably. And he was like, Yeah, good point. Why don't we see if we can make this work? Join forces. And so we we and um we spent a lot of time together. We kind of we did structure things, so we spoke a lot about like, hey, what where do you think you want to go with this? What's important to what do you value as a human? And we had a lot of alignment, and um we said, yeah, all right, I think we're pretty clear that we want to work together, let's give it a crack. Um and you know, we structured things so that if one of us did uh if it didn't work out, that the other one wouldn't be left um you know hamstrung because of that. Um and there's ways ways to do that, but that's a whole nother topic. Um but yeah, we've it's been great. So I've been working with him for 10 almost 10 months now, and um we just closed a pre seed round of uh just over 1.8 million dollars. Congratulations. Um yeah, thank you. And so I'm going again. Um the run again, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So just just on that, are you are you still involved with Ed Rollo at any in any capacity?
SPEAKER_01I'm still a shareholder, okay, and always will be like a major supporter of the business. Um, but I um I was on the board that whole time, um, even when I was sick, I was still on the board helping. Um, but I stepped down from the board in uh the middle of this year uh just to focus squarely on teacher's buddy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um you have a number of influencers, your wife and kid being one and right being another. Did you use the rights framework when um when uh uh doing the assessment on uh teacher's buddy? You did your research. Um I did actually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you did. Yeah, well, um more about like what I could what what what could I build and like what would have the most impact? Obviously it's all qualitative, like you know, subjective I should say. Um but yes, I did use it.
SPEAKER_02For for the listeners and listeners that may be thinking what the hell does a rice mean in in your context, how would you use that framework when sizing up something?
SPEAKER_01So rice is a framework that um I copied off uh another, like a Brian Balfour, I think, uh a really well-known uh Silicon Valley marketer and growth hacker. And so um R is uh relevance, I stands for impact, C is confidence that you'll have that impact, and E is the ease of execution. And you give each of those four things a score, typically out of 10. Um, but you you find that as you're ranking things, um you you change your scores as you go because you've got a list of things you're going through, and you go, yeah, that one was I did say it was a you know eight from a confidence perspective, but now that I look at the other ones, I think that's maybe a I'll adjust that down to a six, and this one's probably an eight. And it just helps you get uh a number out of forty, and the closer the forty, uh the better. Um and it just helps you prioritize or find the thing that you want to work on. So yes, I did use it.
SPEAKER_03So what's the what's the number? Oh what's the number out of 40 that you go? Okay, this is something.
SPEAKER_01It's all relative. It's all relative.
SPEAKER_03So in your case, what were what were your um over 30? Over 30, typically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. How did um teacher's buddy rank out? I can't remember, but it was probably like 33 or something. So high.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. And do you and do you use that same sort of checklist regularly? Or do you decide it to yourself?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, not not all the time. But when it when it can be um useful, I do use it. Um, you know, for example, in hiring, for example, you know, you can have a rubric for hiring, and um you can it's not the rise room, but you know, you can have a rubric and get to pump out a score for your candidates, and that just helps you. Um and what I find is it's it's more the process that is helpful as opposed to the final number. Yep. Uh, because you go through that and you you might you know in your heart that nah candidate who's ranking second, they're the right person, but they're ranking second in this one, number one, you know, it's only he's only maybe two points ahead, but I don't think that's the right hire. So it's all about the pro you know. There's a bit of emotion in there, as well. Yeah, yeah. So um it's not the be all and end all, but it definitely helps.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Now, Ben, you're you're on your new venture at Teachers Party. What does it do?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so this is a hard one because it it's what we're trying to do keeps changing, but at the at the core of it, uh we're trying to make um teachers' lives and the impact that they can have on students um so much more um powerful and and um and better uh than than what they're they're currently um dealing with. You know, there's a bit of a a teacher burnout crisis at the moment, you know, a lot of teacher surveys are showing that teachers are burnt out. Um the gr new graduate teachers, you know, um I can't remember what the stat is, but like maybe 50% of um graduate teachers um leave after but you know by the five year mark. Um yeah, and you know, there is a teacher shortage. Um in Victoria, for example, for every um job that uh was posted for the uh Victorian Department of Education schools, I believe there were um there used to be, or most recently, you know, um 10 to 20 plus applications per role, which is still pretty low in my opinion, but right now it's sitting at two applications per roll on average.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01That's how bad it is. Um and you know, teachers uh we believe, and a lot of the evidence shows, they can play one of the most significant parts in uh what a student achieves, um, not only academically, but from a well being perspective. And so we're all about the teacher and focusing on them and yeah, trying to make their um their lives easier. So uh there's four parts to our product. The first part is a workspace, and it's all AI powered. Um, but we're helping them with a lot of the um processes and things that they do. From a teaching and learning perspective. So we can help them with their planning for lessons, them uh creating assessments, um, creating what are called marking rubrics for those assessments, so how to mark those assessments and even marking and student reporting as well. So you can imagine how powerful AI, generative AI can be, and a lot of that. Um, but we're always keeping the teacher or the human in the loop, so we're not letting just AI run run wild. We're we're making sure the teacher has the final say in whatever's put forward or put in front of a student. Um then there are three other parts, um, but they're in early development, so I won't bother talking about them now.
SPEAKER_02I've got another question, and I think that a lot of listeners are going to be interested in it, especially for the young entrepreneurs that are listening to this podcast, going about raising money. What what are some things that um listeners need to be aware of when they are thinking about, hey, I want to raise some money as well? What are some frameworks that they can use, etc.?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, we learnt a lot of this the hard way during the Ed Rollo days because the startup ecosystem here in Australia really was um didn't really exist. And so we didn't have access to mentors uh or as many mentors as um what is available now to startup founders. And so, number one, I would go speak to other founders and learn from their experience, um, but don't take uh everything that they say as gospel. Um, take everyone's information and synthesize it and you know bring it back to what you're trying to do. Um even before that, um you've got to really understand uh why you want to raise money as well. So before even go on that journey, like you've got to understand what that why you need it, why does your business need it? Um but what are you promising the investors? Because um if you're trying to raise for a business that's really not gonna you know potentially be worth a billion dollars, they're not gonna want to talk to you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So just on the on on the promising to the investors what you're gonna do, is it mainly financial all the time, or is there is there other caveats or like you know, offshoots of that that they look for?
SPEAKER_01It's most mostly um financial return, is what they're doing. There are uh um even the ones that are uh financially aligned, you know, uh are looking for financial outcomes, which are most venture capital firms, um, they do focus on themes sometimes. So some of them are thematic and they might have you know um themes like AI is a big one, but they're probably even breaking them down to multiple themes. Um, some are like um deep tech focused, um hardware focused. Um so that's where it comes. But then there's a an uh another breed of investors called impact investors. That's well as well. Yeah, and so they're looking for not only financial return, but also to do good for the world.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01And um with Teachers Buddy, uh, we've been lucky to have actually two uh institutional impact investors backing us. So um they like our business because um of what we can do for teachers and therefore students and learning outcomes at the end of the day. Uh and so they're they're actually I haven't sat down with them yet, but um, they'll be giving us some things to think about about you know, what are we moving the dial on, not only financially, but in terms of impact. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh oh, Ben, uh you wear a lot of hats, um, and now you give back to the startup world quite a bit. Uh you're a board member at Turak College, uh, advocacy and support committee at We High. Hopefully I've got that correct. But what drives you to be involved in so many spaces?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think it's uh it is just curiosity, and um I like learning about things and understanding things around you know that interest me in the world. Um so for Turek College, um just being in the school space, um uh I just find schools fascinating, um, like ecosystems. They're it's unbelievable. I don't know how teachers and particularly school leaders remember so many people's names. Like you don't have to remember your colleagues' names, just you know, the teachers in the school, but you've got to remember parents, kids. It's um I don't know how they do it. Um and so I was just curious, and an opportunity came up to uh work with or work for Turek College, uh, which is where Christy Kendall um uh is the principal. And I jumped at it um to work with her again, um, is uh was definitely something to worth jumping for. And yeah, I'm loving my time on that board. Um and with We High, um, so that's the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, um, and they do amazing cutting jet cutting-edge scientific research. And I was introduced to them um it's a bit of a sad story, but my uh it is a sad story. My sister passed away with uh due to um a very short battle with pancreatic cancer. And as we were trying to understand what what is pancreatic cancer, um I was introduced to one of the scientists there who is research doing research in that field, and she spent she took a lot of time out of her day um uh to just educate me, support me. I'd just be an ear to to to you know to for me to talk to. And I just thought, yeah. Um and again, an opportunity came up to join their advocacy and support committee through a mutual connection, and I just yeah, I'd love to help out, like um, particularly that researcher, um, given how generous she was with her time for uh with me and my family. Um so yeah, curiosity to sum it up.
SPEAKER_03You're a dad of three balancing companies, balancing family life, balancing boards. How do you do it, Ben?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um I do it averagely. I reckon I do it. Okay, I could definitely do better. Um but yes, it is a lot. Um, and I think just um being careful with uh my time, but more importantly for me, particularly now, my energy. Um, so I try and um be very careful with what gets into my calendar. Yeah, that's both in personal and work life, and so yeah, I I live by my calendar, and um that helps yeah, keep the the wheels on the track.
SPEAKER_03Even more. Thank you very much for doing this for us. That's uh you're very a very hard person to get, which is great.
SPEAKER_02Now, looking back over the last 15 years from your first company to now, what's the biggest lesson that you've learned as a founder?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a it's a really good question, and um I've been thinking on this. I the biggest lesson I've learned is to just be myself. Um there's definitely been stages, particularly in the Ed Rolo journey, where I wasn't being myself. Um, and I look back and oh yeah, like it's so obvious. Like I wasn't um I guess working in tune with that, and I regret that, to be honest. And so um that's the same with um you know the uh school captain opportunity that came up. I wasn't necessarily, you know, vying for it, but I put my hand in the ring and um end up getting it. And yeah, so I think uh just by being myself, these things, you know, good things uh come around. I guess it's maybe I believe in karma, maybe not, but you know, you do have there's a lot of luck there as well. But I think the biggest learning is just to be yourself and I think um the world will do wonderful things for you.
SPEAKER_03You've been really open with your journey through mental health and grief. Can you just share some I mean you briefly touched on it, but can you just open up a little bit more and just just for our listeners and how did you cope through it? How what did you learn from it and how it's I guess helped you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um so when I lost my sister, um I think I even yeah yeah, it was after she passed, I thought I would uh get a psychologist, and I did. And uh it was the best thing I ever did. And I wish I this was something on the curriculum actually, or something that uh all young people learn, which I think that more of them are, like it definitely wasn't in in my day. Um, and but yeah, mental health really wasn't spoken about, it was definitely taboo, and um you know, getting that help from a professional, um, and you can actually be really selfish in these things, like just talk about yourself and not worry about offending someone, um, which is hard if you're you know confiding your your partner or a friend, um, whereas with a psychologist, you're paying them to listen. So you better listen to your um but that was one of the best things I I ever did because I learned a lot about um myself, um, how and what grief is and can do to you. Um and so yeah, I I talk about it openly because um I just think um everyone should have an opportunity to know as much about themselves as possible because I think you'll be happier for it. And so yeah, that's why I open up about it. Um yeah, and grief is it hits people differently, um, and it's got different stages, and sometimes you go from stage three back to stage one, and it's a windy, bumpy road. Um, but yeah, having having an outlet to either talk about it or maybe it's something creative that you want to do, like maybe go draw or something. Like um, I think you know, we all are gonna lose someone that we love at some point in our life, uh, multiple people uh by the time we're we come around to succumbing to our um inevitably. And so I think um yeah, just knowing what grief is, how to and how you handle it and and um what you need to do to look after yourself is an important thing. And yeah, so I encourage those sorts of conversations. They're hard, but um I like to encourage people to have those conversations.
SPEAKER_02No, I think it's correct. I think uh you know, especially we're we're a little bit older, um, so speaking to friends or speaking to other people is almost shunned upon. Whereas now I think it's um mental health and uh exploring that is a little bit more open, but I I can understand, you know, as for the older generation, yeah, it can be a little bit harder even just to tap into that, right? Just to sometimes you just hold it into yourself, but to go and explore, you know, it's a courageous thing to do. So yeah, good stuff.
SPEAKER_03If if you don't mind, Chancellor jump in for a sec. Um what did you learn in that process of grieving? And how and and how long did it take you? I mean, you can never grieve fully, but how long did it take you to get back to, you know, okay, I I I can accept this now and you know, to a certain extent and move forward?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for so yeah, everyone's journey is different. Um, but for me, I think it was a good year and a half or two years where I kind of got um yeah, felt like I'd kind of accepted it. Um, because before that I was like mega annoyed, mega frustrated what happened um and couldn't let that go. Um, but yeah, found out a a way to do that. And you know, I didn't only just work through grief with my psychologist, and um I had multiple actually just for various reasons, but um also just working on understanding myself as well as part of that. And there was a really interesting couple of things. They they've got surveys, you know, uh questionnaires and things that we get a bit of an insight into. But the one that I found was really interesting and um super helpful was uh it's called um schema therapy or um understanding your schemas, and so it's quite a long survey uh that you do, but it really brought out um things that I've uh the patterns of thinking and being uh that I've been doing since I've been a young child, and it's quite amazing actually, the the learnings that uncovered and um yeah, it's just helped me um yeah, be a better person, a better dad, a better uh husband, um at least you know, trying to be better every day as well.
SPEAKER_02So you sort of unlocked sort of like unconscious biases that you may have had or unconscious, unconscious patterns, and now knowing that you're able to sort of recourse, or not so much recourse, but sort of be aware of it.
SPEAKER_01Be aware of them, and you know, you you're not gonna catch them all the time. Um, you still act out of impulse sometimes, and oh well, a lot. And um, but yes, it it definitely helps. Um, you know, sometimes when you something frustrating happens and you you catch yourself, you're like, okay, you know let's take a breath and yeah, think this through before you react. Restart. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, all right, very good. Now for younger Hale Burians listening, whether they're aspiring entrepreneurs or just starting out in their careers, what advice would you give about balancing ambition with well-being?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is a tough one. I I feel like personally I paid the price of um being out of balance with definitely with well-being versus ambition. Um, you know, there's no doubt that my in my mind that my reaction to the COVID infection that led to health issues was because I wasn't looking after my uh whole self for a long time. And so, yeah, my advice is to try and balance as much as possible. But I think when you're younger, I think you can skew more to ambition because you are healthier, you're typically fitter, um, you don't have as many obligations, whether it's family, a mortgage, kids, etc. So I think you can skew to ambition, but don't you know stay that way for to for forever. Um, you do need to start um tapering that off and balancing back to well-being. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and what does well-being mean to you? And what does like if people are like, okay, well, I need to sort of skew my way to more well-being, what are activities that they can do?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um I think you know, I think about um like the mind, the body, and the soul. Um, you know, I'm not religious, but I believe probably, I don't know, maybe I'm a little bit spiritual. So thinking in those three. So from a mind perspective, um, I just think about, you know, what can I do for my mind? And uh there's a great uh I've actually been reading a lot of uh about uh stoic philosophy and the uh amazing um learnings that they've you know that are over 2,000 years old now that we still have access to, thankfully. Um and one of the things that they're um that came out of that is that you you you are what you expose, like you surround yourself with, you are what you read, you are what you watch. Um, and so being mindful of from when you think about your mind space as opposed to your body and soul, it's like, okay, what am I exposing myself to? And when you start thinking through that lens, you're like, okay, I'm gonna stop scrolling through Instagram uh right now. It's not really serving uh a purpose right now, um, and go do something else, maybe read a book. Um, you know, I I don't even read the news anymore um every day. I used to do that, and I'm like, no, I'm I'm I literally I have the New York Times app and I just do it for the puzzles. So I literally cover secondhand to cover the screen and just to find the puzzle button, the play button, and go to the games as opposed to see the headlines. Um, so yeah, um yeah, that's how I think about it. One thing I've learned as well uh through thinking about well-being for me, um, I used to put a lot of pressure on myself to meditate. And a lot of the time you're just like, come on, just do it, do it, you've got to do it. And what I've found is I've actually um I don't sit down to meditate as often as I used to, um, because I've found other things that are like meditative in nature. Um, swimming is one, like where it's just you in the water and your head's in there, like there's nothing else, like things literally blocked out. Um the other thing is like doing the dishes at night. Um, like that's another thing that I I've kind of like I've got this process and it feels very like cleansing. Um so yeah, there's there's just yeah, don't follow, don't do something because someone told you to, like find a way that works for you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03When you think back to Hale Brie Ben, uh what are some things that you I guess lessons and values that you picked up from here that you carry with you now in your personal and your professional life?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think um I was fortunate enough to have um Mr. Aikman as a principal for a couple of years before he retired. And one of the things that um I remember is him talking to us, or I don't know if he spoke to us or maybe he did, but like looking someone in the eye and shaking their hand um and what that signifies in you know um for them, but also for you, that yeah, you're a confident young person. Um and I guess that bled into, you know, if I say I'm gonna do something, I'll do it, or if I'm not gonna be able to do it, explain why. Um and so I think yeah, that value of um yeah, just um looking someone in the eye and and committing to something. Um I I think I I've taken that to very various parts of my um life and yeah, like standing up to welcome someone to a meeting, like you shake the hand or when you first meet someone. And um yeah, I think that that's one thing that um one lesson. The other thing I think that keeps showing up for me is um the the I don't know, the the camaraderie that you're able to build with um you know, your friends here. Like I've got a lot of lifelong friends, thankfully. I don't spend enough near enough time with them, unfortunately, just because of life. But um you know, there's a lot to value in those friendships and um those moments that you're growing up with them um and uh learning about the world. And yeah, I just cherish those memories um and yeah, cherish those friendships and thank Haylibree for those opportunities.
SPEAKER_03Amazing. Thank you, Ben. Um bit of fun to finish off now. Cool. There's a bit of a spitball round, whatever comes into your mind. Ready? Ready. All right, coffee or tea? Decaf coffee. Decaf. Decaf coffee. Morning or night? Uh night. Night Melbourne or Sydney? Melbourne. Startups or corporates? Startups. Best subject at Haylibry. Psychology. Worst subject at Haylibry.
SPEAKER_01French. Favorite teacher. Uh oh, too many. Mr. Lees, Mr. Rogerson, uh, and Miss Kendall. First job. First job, uh, auditor at KPMG. Biggest risk you've taken. Probably quitting that job to go into finance, but also to um quitting that finance job to start Ed Rollo. Best advice you've received. Hmm. That's a good one. Best advice I received. Probably from my mum, and it probably is like just be yourself. Like yeah, do your best and be yourself.
SPEAKER_03Favorite sport? Oh, basketball? Cricket or footy? Neither. One book you recommend.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I really like um oh man. In the startup world, um zero to one. Uh in life, uh The Alchemist.
SPEAKER_03The Alchemist, yeah. One app you can't live without.
SPEAKER_01Superhuman, my email app. Who inspires you the most? Uh my wife, actually.
SPEAKER_03Why?
SPEAKER_01Why? Um she's such a good parent, she's such a good mom, and she's always learning about that field, and I'm constantly learning from her. Um, and she's always striving to be like show up as like the better version of herself, and like she just has so much energy for that and a commitment to it, and um, yeah, I admire it.
SPEAKER_03Amazing.
SPEAKER_01Toughest moment as a founder. That's a tough one. I think like, oh man, like when we went through the COVID uh lockdown period, because we were based in headquartered in Melbourne, that was extremely tough. Like, yeah, you know, we're burning as a startup, we're kind of we weren't we're burning money, we were uh had to deal with, I don't know, we had about 150 staff at the time, and we're like, oh my goodness, what do we do here? So that was that was probably one of the toughest moments, actually. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Biggest win so far.
SPEAKER_01Biggest win. Uh probably starting a family.
SPEAKER_03Family or work, which is harder to manage? Family.
SPEAKER_01Your happy place. My happy place. Oof. I am a bit of a homebody, but I also, yeah, probably home. Yeah. And one word to describe Halebre. Tenacious, tenacity.
SPEAKER_03Beautiful. Thank you very much, Ben. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been great having you. It's been a great story, it's been a great path in your in your work and your personal life. And we can't wait to see what else you do.
SPEAKER_02Thanks a lot. To all our listeners, thanks for staying connected.
SPEAKER_00Because once a Hala Burian, always a Hala Burian.
SPEAKER_02And remember, we go beyond the blazer because every Hala Burian has a story worth telling.