Fayl Tales

poverty line to APAC hype man ~ Dickie Currer-Ganguli

• Loveth Ochayi

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0:00 | 47:14

Hey crew, 
Dickie Currer-Ganguli grew up on the poverty line in Yorkshire with a single mum, joined the army at 20, became a criminal defense and asylum lawyer at 23, moved to Australia at 26, and then found himself picking fruits and milking cows at 27 thinking, what the hell has happened here?

Now he's running Hype Man Media and APAC Innovation Hub, and recently spent 16 days on a train across India with 600 young entrepreneurs, and is about to move to Mumbai.

We cover:
- Growing up on the poverty line with a single mum and how that shaped everything
- Joining the army at 20, becoming a lawyer at 23, and fruit picking in Melbourne at 27
- How a nickname on LinkedIn turned into a media and storytelling business
- Why the most success he's ever had came when he was the most vulnerable
- 16 days on a train across India, four hours sleep a night, and coming off it a shell of a human
- Why 99% of Australian founders look to the US when 5 billion people live next door

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the teaser

SPEAKER_00

I was picking fruits and milking cows and doing all these random jobs at 27 thinking, what the fuck has happened here? I was a lawyer, you know, last year. I think it got me really like growing up with a single mum on the poverty line in a very small village in Yorkshire in England, um, I felt suffocated. I was a dreamer. What I really do is help to connect cultures, people across cultures. If someone feels seen or if someone in the world understands a place a little bit better and doesn't have the same bias they would have had then, my job's done.

SPEAKER_02

Hey crew, let's talk about the climb and not just the peak. Dickey Kuroganguli went from growing up on the poverty line in England to fruit picking in Melbourne to becoming the hype man and the hype man of not just the Australian tech ecosystem but APAC as a whole. He champions everyone's story for a living, and today we're actually going to flip the script on him and get an insight who Dickie is. Dickie, welcome to Fairstales.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

You've talked a little bit about your background growing up in northern England and your mum raising you on her own, which is really, really amazing. How did that shape you into who you are today?

SPEAKER_00

I think it gave me a lot of feminine energy having uh having a female, I guess, influence in my life. So my mum and my uh grandma brought me up together. I did join the army when I was 20, so I feel like maybe that was my uh injection of masculine energy that I needed. But from a young age, it meant that I guess um I was, you know, I had the in intuition um to really lean into that feminine side, which I think you know made me a great communicator, it made me sort of be a a caring human being. And I think I also saw how hard she had to work as a single mum to actually bring me up. Um, you know, she was um working multiple jobs, she had taken me with her. Um and so for me, I I think I I I I found an amazing role model, um, and I really learned a lot of lessons about what it means to to grow and be a human.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell So was it just the both of you, no siblings?

SPEAKER_00

No siblings. No pressure, right?

SPEAKER_02

Um and so what did you decide to do with yourself? You joined the army, why, first of all? Like that's a huge and interesting decision to make.

SPEAKER_00

It is, right. I I think I'm a big reflector, and I think looking back now, it's because I feel like I I wanted to learn what it meant to be a man, um, which I feel like is um, you know, now uh the older I am, I realize life's not like that. Life's very gray. Um, and there's such a thing as being a man. There's very many different versions of what a man is. Um, but I feel like I needed that sort of having not had a father growing up, I sought the army out as a masculine influence to teach me about myself. I didn't know how to shave when I was like 19, right? I didn't have a dad to turn around and go, How do I shave? The army's amazing for that. The army gives you so many skills, discipline, resilience, um, you know, physical attributes, mental attributes. Um, and I feel like I was always the person growing up that wanted to a challenge, wanted to push myself, wanted to drive myself into new spaces and wanted to be uncomfortable. And I felt like being uncomfortable is the only place you can grow.

SPEAKER_02

And the army is a good place for that. It is. That's for sure.

SPEAKER_00

My first I joined as an officer. So my first night um in the army, I was put into a a room with six other guys. Um, and actually I I was uh I was asleep, I got woken up, they came in and they were arguing about whether Eton or Harrow was the best school to go to and which one were the best in the um in the boat race this year. Very posh, the two best schools in England, right? And I went to a working class school in Yorkshire and um and they were like, Which school did you go to? And I'm like, Oh, Bowlby High School. And they're like, What? Where is that? And for them, it was like I had two people look at up, six people looking at me like I was an alien. They I I swear they'd never seen anyone like me before, interact with anyone like me before. Um, it was one of the hardest challenges, I think, of my life to kind of um to deal with that um and then to grow and learn. And in the end, I ended up becoming, I think several of them, I was their boss. Uh, a few of them I never really got along with, uh, understandably. Um but in terms of a steep learning curve, uh, it was amazing looking back.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Wow. Your godmother then gave you an atlas, which seemingly changed everything. Talk me through that process and how did it change you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So my godmother Sally, um, she gave me the atlas when I was, I think I was eight years old. I say eight when I'm talking on podcasts, but who knows? But um, by the by by the age of sort of nine, ten, I could literally tell you every capital city, every country flag. I was obsessed with this atlas. I've still got it. It's now lost its cover, its spine's kind of fallen to pieces, but it's like my most prized possession. And I think it got me really like growing up with a single mum on the poverty line in a very small village in Yorkshire in England. Um, I felt suffocated. And I I kind of I was a dreamer. You know, I'd read this atlas and I'd dream about the places I could go to, the adventures that I could have, but they feel they felt so distant for me. Um, they felt like they were a million miles away. And then I sort of hit my adult life at 16, 17 and realized it wasn't. You know, I was lucky to grow up in a in an age and uh in a timeline where like those things were very achievable to do now. Um I got a job, I could work hard, I could earn money, and then I could go and travel and see these places that I'd spent I I dreamt of as a kid that would never be achievable. And I feel like that wonderlust, that uh desire for adventure and to go into new places and experience new things has been a constant throughout my life based on that first atlas.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, where was the first place you traveled to when you could?

SPEAKER_00

I went to Denmark when I was 14 on an exchange trip with um with my school, which was hilarious because the drinking age in Denmark is 14. So you can imagine a bunch of like English kids going there was quite fun. But I think my first solo trip was really proper solo trip was when I was 18, was to South America. I spent six months. Uh I flew into Ecuador, flew out of um Rio, and

six months in south america at 18, growing up fast

SPEAKER_00

um I grew up there. That was definitely the transition between between being a boy and being an adult, you know. Um, because I definitely learned what it means to to look after yourself and um yeah, got into some interesting scenarios, as you can imagine, an 18-year-old in South America would.

SPEAKER_02

Do you have any PG stories that you could share?

SPEAKER_00

Definitely not. They're all non-PG, they're all non-PG.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, fair. Um You then became a lawyer and then eventually moved to Melbourne. Like, talk about career changes and pivots. How did those come about and then why Melbourne of all places in the world?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So um I went to law school uh during the time I was in the army as well. So I was an army reserve officer. Um, and then I was destined to go full-time in the military. Uh so I'd signed up my contract to go to Sandhurst and spend um four years, I think it was, as an officer, full-time in the military. And then I actually went traveling again and got a tropical disease when I was in Thailand.

unknown

Oof.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, which is called schistosomycesis or Bill Hart's urine. Uh it's basically a parasite that systematically shuts all your organs down. So pretty rough. Um, once I recovered, um, I was okay, but I wasn't the same level of fitness that I was at. And for me, it was like if I'm gonna go and do this full-time military career, I want to make sure I do it at the best I can actually do and be my peak. And uh, so I thought I thought, right, okay, what do I do now? Luckily, I've got a lot of great. So I will jump into being a lawyer. And I was a criminal defense lawyer and immigration and asylum lawyer for a short period of time. Um, when I was 23, 24. So I was my job was to basically defend asylum seekers that were trying to get removed from the UK.

SPEAKER_02

By that age, you joined the army, completed a law degree, and started working. Like, that is incredible.

SPEAKER_00

I know. I really think that's that's why I've got grey hair in my 30s, I think. It started when I was in my early 20s. I was like, I was, yeah, I was a part-time army officer and then full-time immigration lawyer at 23. And I'd go home on a weekend living in London, and um I would just be thinking about my clients that were about to get removed from the country to Syria, Eritrea, you know, Afghanistan, all over the world. Um, it was pretty stressful. Um I finished up with that job, um, did a bit of work in travel, and then for me, I'd always, I guess going back to the Atlas story, I always wanted to be a migrant. I always wanted to move to a different country.

SPEAKER_01

Why?

SPEAKER_00

I again I think it's it's just constantly having that new experience, that new you know, I I think again, like I think cult you can be culturally uncomfortable as well. And I think like I I look at the world as being a jigsaw. Um, and I feel like the more of it you see, the more pieces of the jigsaw you're putting together, and therefore the bigger picture you'll actually understand. That's kind of how I see the world. So I I think you can, you know, I'm very privileged to have a passport that allows me to travel the world, or two passports now in Australia and the UK. But I think you can find new experiences uh

moving to australia at 26 and fruit picking at 27

SPEAKER_00

wherever you are, even if you don't have that privilege. But for me, having that privilege, I I can sit here and think my prejudice about what I think a country's gonna be like, but I never know until I've been there, right? So for me, it's like the more places you go to. And you can travel, and that's one experience, but living somewhere is completely different again. So I picked the easiest place you could travel to is a Brit and come to it to come to Australia. But at the time, me and my partner at the time were 26. We both finished jobs in London, we were kind of sick of the big city life, and we were like, let's go to Australia for a few months, see what happens. And then lo and behold, I think next week's my 11-year anniversary. Wow here. So and it was exactly what I expected it would be. I to start again. I couldn't join the military because I wasn't a citizen, I couldn't practice law because um I didn't have an Australian law qualification. So it started from scratch, and then I was picking fruits and milking cows and doing all these random jobs at 27, thinking, what the fuck has happened here? I was a lawyer, you know, last year. Um but the growth that I got from that is just incredible. I think yeah, so again, it set me up for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_02

When I was chatting with Desmond, um, he told me about the time when you guys both lived in a shared house and how much energy you had and how inspiring you were. So just from talking to you right now, I can just see that.

SPEAKER_00

This is my little brother.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I got married on the weekend and he was my uh witness.

SPEAKER_01

Aww.

SPEAKER_00

His real name's John Desmond.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So I had to write that down in the witness thing, and I was like, could I ever get this right? Because the fraud the m the the wedding certificate.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly, exactly. If you've made it this far, we are basically friends. Watching on YouTube, hit the like and subscribe button. Listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you stream your podcasts, hit the follow and like, and so that you can tune in for more next week. So, what was the storytelling gap you saw within the Australian ecosystem? And yeah, why did you decide that you were the right person to kind of fill that gap?

SPEAKER_00

I feel like it was there's a a a lack of human stories. Um and I feel like I I kept meeting so many incredible founders and entrepreneurs that um struggled to articulate what they were doing. You'd ask them and said, give me your one-line pitch, and it would be two minutes of technical spiel and jargon and waffle. And I'm like, it doesn't really work for the average person, right? Unless you're um a technical domain expert in a certain field. Like, how do you talk about you know biogenetics to someone who doesn't know nothing about it? How do you translate that? And I feel like my experience is I started to realise through my 20s, through doing many different jobs, when you've communicated with asylum seekers, uh, army generals, you start to realize like oh, you start to have a skill, which is how do you communicate to loads of different people? Uh and it's what my mum actually gave me as a kid. Like, she was that kind of person that could talk to anyone. She's a social worker, and so she worked with the traveler community and uh people within it. And so I feel like she gave that skill to me of like I can communicate to anyone, any anybody. And I feel like then my career sort of just helped enhance that. And I was like, well, I could be someone that's almost a translator. I think that's what storytelling is, right? Especially in the entrepreneurship industry. So someone that struggles to really be able to um bring out that one-liner or bring out that real uh uh emotion through their story um is something that I just was naturally quite good at. Um and so um yeah, that's when I jumped into it.

SPEAKER_02

And so what was the first version of Hype Man Media?

SPEAKER_00

I think it was just called Hype Man. So initially people started calling me the hype man. Okay. I I I I always there's a guy called Brian Borowski, and if you know him, I I attribute this to him, but not but loosely, so he doesn't get the um any, you know, any subsidies. But I've said this several times now on media, and I'm like, oh one point is gonna sue me. Um as for equity. No, he's a great guy. But I reckon there's a few people that sort of loosely said this term, I don't know why. And then um and then I put it on my LinkedIn headline, you know, and then that's when it stuck. And then people were buying me merch. And so I think initially it was called Hype Man, and I just had a newsletter that I launched, and then I started to realize like I had to kind of steer people to as to what it does in a way. And you know, at the time we were creating newsletters and content podcasts and um and doing storytelling workshops, and I was like, oh, it feels like media is the right forum, even though I think it's you know really a media and storytelling agency. Um so that was kind of the the journey. And I yeah, I how often do you get to start a business that comes from a nickname that you've had, you know? Not very often. And I was like, I'm just gonna lean into it. But I think at first there was like an insane amount of imposter syndrome, like there is with doing anything, right? Yeah. Even when you're in this world where you're surrounded by people who are taking such risk all the time. I felt like I had that initial imposter syndrome, and then I was like, screw it.

SPEAKER_02

What was the transition like from

the terrifying transition from employee to founder

SPEAKER_02

being an employee to now being a founder yourself and developing this new thing in media, which I'm guessing was a new space for you? How did you navigate that transition?

SPEAKER_00

It was awful. I hated it. So like I was, I I've I think I'm one of those people that have had I've always had entrepreneurial and mindset and the skills to be an entrepreneur, but um, not the risk tolerance. Because I grew up on the poverty line with like a single mum, right? So it was like I just saw I didn't see like an entrepreneur, I didn't see a business owner growing up. It was like I saw a woman that was just like scrambling, doing every job she could to make money, and it was survival mode. So I grew up thinking I needed to always have that same survival mode. So and make it making money equal success. I not been someone that was defined by money, but money was almost a safety net. Um, so starting my own business was terrifying. Even though I was in this, I was in a community of people around me doing it, and I had all the resources you could ever want. Because I feel like it's almost impossible to work in this industry as an employee without eventually catching the bug and being like, okay, well, I've got to start something.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I was almost that kid that like created all these ideas and oh, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna have this project, and it never went anywhere. So I always had this like you know drive. Um and I think things like the army make you a great entrepreneur as well, because you learn, you know, how to get up every day, get punched in the face and keep and keep going, quite literally, I think, in both industries. Um and um and so yeah, but it was really hard to start and to move away from being an employee. It was liberating and it still is. But those first that first year I just remember, you know, the odd occasional LinkedIn scroll to see jobs and to just think about that security. Oh, that must be so nice to have a salary again. And I feel like it's been nearly two years now that I've been doing this on my own, um solo away from a business. Um, and I feel like that happens less and less now, you know. And I think that's the initial hard part to get past when you've moved from having a secure career for 10, 15 years.

SPEAKER_02

100%. What were some of the initial big wins that you encountered on that initial journey? Because I know often the first six months, first year is really, really tough when you're trying to prove yourself and like monetize what you're trying to build. What was that first win that you thought, oh, this is this is the right path, I'm gonna keep going?

SPEAKER_00

I had I had a couple of clients before I started. So like I was doing working for a VC in Sydney and had like a four-day a week job. And basically on the other um three days effectively, I was hustling and doing like my own project. So I had the newsletter that we we got a sponsor and that was an ongoing returner. And then I had people reaching out to me and asking me for paid LinkedIn content. So I was doing that, and then there was a few different other projects that were kind of coming about. And I started to realize that I was probably spending more time working on those projects than I was in the full-time role. And it was a new role as well. And I was like, okay, and so we had a conversation with the team. I was like, I think it's time for me to you know go solo on my own. So at least I already had, you know, two or three things. There was already business there, I was ready to kind of move into it. And I'd also um during that time, I guess the reason what really pushed me and prompted me is I wanted to start traveling and take this the things that I'd done in Australia global. Um, and you can't do that when you're working for someone else. No, you need the flexibility, right? I think a big part was finding stability in other places. So like um I've just married, got married, like I said. Congratulations. Thank you. I married in January in India, but I've just did my vows in Australia this weekend. But my wonderful wife, Pooja, she came into my life at that time when I was about to do it and she pushed me off the edge.

SPEAKER_01

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00

She was like, be courageous, do it. You need to get started. And now we're the co-founders in our businesses. So um but she was there from day one. She's always been a co-founder. I think that any partner really is a co-founder, whether they like it or not. So I said to her eventually, I was like, we might as well make it official and get you working in it, because you've been here for the the whole journey anyway. Yeah. So I think finding her as well just helped me kind of final, you know, push over the edge and knowing there was someone there to support and um and and be almost that secure, like that calm in chaos.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and now she's a hype woman. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

You can change your business out. I'm like, no, because we don't need to. And I mean, hype hype man's got its own connotations, right? And so we we do call the hype woman. We're gonna get a t-shirt with Woman. My mum's also got a t-shirt with hype mum on it. Oh. So sweet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

What advice would you give founders who are navigating that like really tough middle where they're working a full-time job or even part-time job and trying to decide what the best timing is to fully jump in and go solo? Because you get a diverse range of advice on this front. And I know it's

pick the lifestyle you want, then work backwards

SPEAKER_02

different between whether you're like 18 and fresh out of school, or if you're a bit more experienced and you have a mortgage or whatever, but generally, what advice would you give founders who are thinking about that?

SPEAKER_00

I think like pick the lifestyle that you want to have. Like that for me, lifestyle should be the main driver. If you want to make a ton of money and have an enormous house in Canada, that's not my dream, but that is a lot of people's who work at an ship. Then how are you gonna get there? Like, what is the lifestyle you want to have? If you want to work 20 hours a week, you know, again, pick your job based on that. I said this, I I do a lot of work in India and I was on a train last year. I said this to a lot of young people in India and they couldn't understand that concept because work is security, work is survival, right? But I think we're so privileged. Um lots of people in the West are so privileged to be able to go, I I can pick this job or this opportunity or what I want to do with my work life to build my own lifestyle. I would say make that your number one thing because that will generally dictate what you need to do next. Right. And then I think in terms of um when to start, um, I would say, you know, base that on it's like when you raise capital as a founder, right? If you're gonna take VC money, I would always advise people it's at the point where you can't no longer continue in your um your growth trajectory without the money, right? So it's like don't try raising at the start. Raise when you're like, okay, there's too much work now. I need money and capital to inject and supercharge this. Same thing with that transition. If you start to get that point where, like I did, where you've got two or three days of steady work coming in, then your lifestyle dictates that you probably need to make the move. That's the point where it's like, okay, go all in. It's time to risk it all. But I think it's just about what lifestyle you you might have a you might have a heart attack and then turn around the next day and go, I don't want to work with someone else anymore. And that's gonna dictate what life your lifestyle looks like in the future. For me, it's like that my whole business and every every choice I make is based on lifestyle because people sometimes come up to you and say, Well, how do you scale this? How do you grow this? You know, you're gonna hire 10 people in the next year. Like I wanna like that's why my wife and I now are in the same business together, because we wanna have um a lifestyle where we can do this together and have complete flexibility.

SPEAKER_02

What is your dream lifestyle?

SPEAKER_00

Probably working twenty th 20 to 30 hours a week on like high impact projects. So working with working on initiatives or with founders that have a real impact lens and things that we're doing are making a positive impact in the world.

the dream, 20 hours a week, high impact, global, with his wife

SPEAKER_00

And that's global. You know, so like you know, one one week I'm speaking at a conference in China, the next I'm working on a project in Uganda, and there's always experience and difference and growth, and I want to write a book. I think you should. I've just started actually.

SPEAKER_02

Nice. It makes a lot of sense because you have such great diversity, but also depth in a lot of areas. So I think you 100% should.

SPEAKER_00

It's about my experience becoming the Jamai of India, which means son-in-law in India. So it's like my experiences of what it's like to like start to grow into that space and um and the things that I've learned across cultures.

SPEAKER_02

Speaking of India, that's actually was that was gonna be my next question because I come across you and your content while you were traveling through India. I remember seeing your LinkedIn post pop up and you were giving updates from the train and the photos, and

what took him to india and asking her father for her hand

SPEAKER_02

I thought, well, who is this man, firstly? And secondly, like I kept hearing your name within the Australian ecosystem. People would be like, Oh, you should talk to Dickie, blah, blah, blah. What took you to India firstly, and how was that trip?

SPEAKER_00

So it was my wife firstly, actually. I had never been until I'd met her. Um, it was one of those places where I was like, and I think there's a lot of places like that. So I grew up with this map, being like, I'm gonna see every country in the world, right? I think now I'm 37, I'm like, oh I've been to 72 now. Impressive. I think yeah. I think I feel like every is not gonna happen, maybe 120, 130. And I feel like there's places, there was places then, and there's places still now, which are like, I'm waiting for the right time. Indigo's one of those places. Um, and the minute I met Pooch and we started talking about it, I was like, boss, I want to get to know. That side of you. And that's actually when I decided I had to marry her. The minute we spent time and Taver in India, I saw that half of her world. Because I think you can't see someone complete until you've seen them in their world. So that was the first trip, and we spent six weeks um traveling across the country. And I actually um asked her father if I could um marry her at the very end of that trip. And then we went back for a programme last year, and then like I said, last year I spent, including the wedding time and the train you mentioned, I spent three months there. Um and now we're moving there um in two weeks on the 4th of May. And so yeah, I felt like it was driven by puja, but it was always a desire to go to India. And um now I'm spending time there. It's just um I love the energy, I love the adventure. Every day feels like there's something new's gonna happen. And I love I guess how I grow when I'm there spiritually, emotionally, um, mentally. I feel like it really broadens my horizons. And I think living across cultures and having like an interacross-cultural relationship is a huge part of that too. Like I feel like I do a lot of work in China as well, and so I'm currently fascinated by Eastern philosophy and how that is different to Western philosophy and communities and collectivist natures and all these different things. And I feel like it's really helping to me to grow and challenge my bias and perspectives. And um, so that's why we're kind of going deeper into it at the moment.

SPEAKER_02

Which is amazing. I've been to India once when I was how old was I, 19? Um, I went to volunteer in Delhi. I think I spent two weeks there. And over the weekends, um, me and my friends would travel to different parts and would catch the like public bus. And I had an amazing time, a truly amazing time. And it's funny, when I was telling my dad about the trip, he was like, This sounds like Nigeria. And I was like, you know what? Yes, it does. And thinking about it from an entrepreneurial sense, I feel like, and I hate this term, those more developing countries, they tend to have more of an entrepreneurial mindset than the more developed because you have to. Um so you obviously agree with that.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I feel like uh we talk about this in Australia, which is um, I think sometimes what's holding Australia's tech ecosystem back and innovation back is the fact that um life's good here. It's a lifestyle country, right? We have all the resources to be great entrepreneurs, but maybe we don't have the necessity or like the scarcity that exists, which is great, actually. Really, like it's maybe not great for the economy, but it's great for the average human being here, right? Um but you're right, like it's it's almost like you know, you have to become an entrepreneur. I'm doing some work with the Bhutanese government right now. Um and they've got, I think, some like 28% youth unemployment, and they're now trying to really upskill their young people to become entrepreneurs because they need to, because the jobs don't exist in the country, right? So um sometimes that's I guess what drives this. And the train ride I was on that you mentioned, the the Jagra Teatra was just yeah, the most insane experience to what was that? So they take 600 young uh people, so between the age of sort of 18 and 25, and then about 100 mentors, um, which I was a mentor, I'm not

16 days on a train with 600 people across india

SPEAKER_00

25 unfortunately, and stick them on a train, and you start in Bombay and finish in Bombay, and the train goes to uh 14 different cities across India. And every place you go to, there's like a full-day program. So there's days where you do like we went to the Indian Parliament, there's days you go to like a the biggest iHospital in India. Um, you go to like a school, like so you like the Kerola startup hub. So there's every part of it is about business, enterprise, government, you know, politics. Um, and the idea being it's like a it's like a hackathon, almost like an accelerator or incubator for the young people on this train. But you live on a train for 16 days, 8,000 kilometers. I was the only foreigner. In previous years, they'd had 30 to 40 foreigners, um, mostly American. And for some reason the Indian government, oh, it's because of Trump's tariffs. The Indian government stopped giving out visas to the Americans. So I got there and was like, oh, is it just me? Okay, awesome. Like, and I I feel like in terms of an immersion, um, a cultural immersion and a business immersion as well, like it was amazing. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. And I've been in the military, right?

SPEAKER_02

What was hard about it?

SPEAKER_00

I probably got about four hours sleep a night. Um because the we were finishing the program most days at 10, 11 p.m., getting back on the train, um, and then all the kids would be dancing around. Like they Indian young people, there was no alcohol in this train. But they just like the energy to dance. Yeah. It's like nothing I've ever seen. And then till probably two in the morning, and then the six o'clock in the morning, we'd have this music getting pumped through the the tanoy to get everyone to wake up and start the day. And um, there was only like these man-made showers they'd put in these train compartments uh that was just cold water. Sometimes there was no water. Um, so I used the sprayer uh you get in the toilet to clean myself sometimes, which was a new life. Again, I've done worse things in my army days. And um, which is it's great to have a cold shower when you're in Kerala and it's 30 degrees, but when it's 10 degrees in like Bihar or UP, it was freezing. And then um there's no like no alcohol. I I like to drink, so that's tough. No, no meat, which actually I was getting again, a big meat here, and so I was exhausted by the end. I felt like my body was like falling apart from the things that normally sustain it. Yeah, and then the other thing is there's no personal space, which is India personified ultimately, right? Which is one of the things I love about it. I always say there's no personal space for the body, mind, or soul in India. But on the train, you couldn't even put your arms out, really.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, yeah, in a carriage.

SPEAKER_00

And so as someone that loves to move, that was hard. And then the social battery, the the greatest thing about India is the hospitality of the people, right? And on that train, I would walk through the carriages. There were four carriages to walk through to get to the bathrooms, or five, sorry. It would take me half an hour sometimes to get there because everyone would be jumping out, going, Dickie, eat the snack. Dickie, tell us about this. Dickie, come and sing with us. Oh, we're dancing now, come and dance with us, which was amazing. But you imagine on like day 14, 15, when you're a bit sick, you're weak, and you're just like, I decided to, it's the first time I've become an introvert in my life. I was like hiding, trying to find corners of the train, like hiding. Even the security guards, because there's about a hundred staff on the train. Security guards, cooks, cleaners, like they were like, some of them had never met a foreigner before. So they were like stopping me and asking me for my WhatsApp and like taking photos with me. And again, like amazing. But like I came off that train like an absolute shell of a human being. I was broken. And it was a month before my wedding. But it was great preparation because I go to the wedding, I'm like, oh, it's easy now. Because like I I know I can be the I you know, I've I've I've acclimatised culturally to everything at this point.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00

I would highly recommend anyone listening to do it, though just prepare for an insane two and a half weeks.

SPEAKER_02

What did you learn about the Indian ecosystem?

SPEAKER_00

So much. I guess like the motivating factors, like I said, about you know that advice of picking your lifestyle. And it's like, I don't have that chat choice. You know, I've got a family to provide for and my parents. And so like I guess that that side of things, just the industries people were working in, um, you know, what um I guess like what motivates like what struggles that entrepreneurs find in that ecosystem and the things and supports they need. And I can still probably get like two or three of them reach out to me a week asking me for advice on things, like um support. That one of them this week was like, I'm looking for a co-founder. Um I was like, Oh, what industry? Any. And I'm like, oh, okay. Like, but they they they want to do like a dried fruits business, which is something I'd never speak to someone here that does um F and B, you know. Um I think so, yeah, I I I I I feel like the way I look at business often, I I I in those scenarios, it's not often like the business learnings that are the most important, it's the human learnings. And I feel like there were so many human learnings about how people work, how they think, their styles and ways of communicating. And that was kind of what came away. I remember saying to my uh wife, um, I remember calling her like one of the times being like, I didn't realize that I was gonna be on a train with like 600 of our customers, basically, because we work in like we do a lot of work with young people, we all work with um people from India, and I was like, this is just like a mind-blowing immersion into it's like going on a two-week retreat with your customers, you know, like to understand people properly. Um but yeah, it was nuts.

SPEAKER_02

From the outset, it sounds like a very glamorous, exciting job and like that you've created. How do you actually describe what you do for people who don't understand? Um, because it sounds very diverse working directly with founders, but also governments, which is amazing. But how do you tie all those things together?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think I'd say like I help to I help to enable growth in startup ecosystems, right? So whether that I say innovation now because um startup can have like connotations that it's like high growth tech, and I don't just work in tech. Um, but I'd say I help to grow innovation ecosystems globally and connect them, and then naturally within that, it's helping entrepreneurs and founders to grow as well, right? Um I think you get that, but maybe I tell my mum that she doesn't quite or my father-in-law, they're like, what's an ecosystem? What is innovation? Oh but that I think that's what I do. And I I think more and more now, actually, with the global piece, yes, that's the vessel, but I feel like what I really do is help to connect cultures, people across cultures, and that's I guess like where I see myself moving into in the future.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I guess this is where your APAC Innovation Hub comes in.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Which is very exciting. Congratulations on the new venture.

SPEAKER_00

You've got the launch party next Thursday.

SPEAKER_02

Wow, just before you head off.

SPEAKER_00

That's one of my like like like my life hacks of people. It is, because you basically combined it with uh uh and then every everyone is just like I feel like you've got maybe like a three-month window when you house an event, people are like, oh yeah, Dickies event. And then we can vanish and no one will realize we've gone because they're like, oh, I had that event with. So it's one of my little um life hacks with people when it comes to personal branding. But um, yeah, that that's come from that, stemmed from that really. Like I say, two years ago when I started the business, it was because I wanted to travel. So I going back a small step, um, I met someone four years ago when I first started working in innovation, and she was um working at Monash University, uh, Susie Ho, she's still there now. Um, she's quite high up in the Monash um vernacular. And um and she'd just been on a six-week trip around Europe, uh profiling European stand-up ecosystems and what um surely could learn from that. And I was like, that's a job. People can do that. It's like, well, yeah. Like, and I was like, that's what I want to do. And I was like, I'm gonna do that. That's for I've been spent, I guess, like 20 years of my professional life trying to work out how I could travel and um and find a really good purpose for that beyond just hedonism and pleasure, right? And so um I thought, oh, I want to do that. So it took me a couple of years to get to the point. And then the the whole growth strategy was become the Melbourne tech innovation person, become the Australian tech and innovation person, and then grow that into being something beyond that globally, and then having that kind of narrative. And so two years ago, the the the push was to then start traveling. And it just happened that I've always had this huge affinity with traveling across Asia. Um, I there's something about the continent that I just absolutely

why 99% of founders look to the us when 5 billion people live next door

SPEAKER_00

love. Um, and the there's a massive gap in our innovation ecosystem now, is because 9% of founders look to go to the US, the rest go to UK, Europe, unless you've got a personal connection to China, India, or Southeast Asia, or um or maybe you've got an early customer there, or you've got an industry which really makes sense. But we're literally sitting on the edge of this continent which has five billion people, an unbelievable opportunity. And naturally, people don't think about it because there's a cultural or language barrier, right, that exists. So a lot of the work we've been doing for the last um two years at Hype Man Media has been storytelling in those markets. So it's how do you go to China, how do you go to India, how do you deal with those cultural differences, what things are happening right now in Indonesia, Malaysia? So it felt like a natural um extension of that to launch Apex Innovation Hub to actually build infrastructure now as well. So we actually we can be the people that go, right, we've told you how to go there, we've told you what it's like and got you excited about it and hyped you up about it, but now it's like we also can support that journey through XYZ. And naturally, across that sort of two years, I've become that I I think I'm one of the best versus people you know in the world now around the people that exist across the region, like who the key players are, how to do business across regions, how to connect people across regions. And so um that thought was like that's kind of driven the new business.

SPEAKER_02

Makes a lot of sense. And I actually think you are the perfect person from Australia to or from the world to do it, because a lot of people often glamoralize traveling and working and connecting, but they often don't think about the cultural differences and how you actually have to integrate and not just bring your Western oh, this is like we're so great, you know, we've got it all figured out, just copy us. Like you actually have to learn from them as well. And it's clear that you're willing to sit on a train with 600 bodies, go through that experience and really just immerse yourself. And so, congratulations. I think that's that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

My wife says that I'm an Indian uncle on the outside and a Chinese grandma on the inside. Because I spent I I've been in China like five times in the last year for work as well. And I like do qi-gong exercises every morning in the backyard and drink like hot water when I wake up. And I again, like I said to you at the start of the conversation, right? It's like starting to understand those parts of Eastern philosophy. And you know, I I'm very cautious to not like slide into the realm of cultural appropriation, but it's like cultural celebration. Yeah, it's like actually I'm I'm sitting at home now reading the teachings of Loud C because I want to understand more about that world. Um, and I feel like for me that's that's the spectrum of experience that exists in our universe, right? And it's a like I get quite a lot of India people come up to me being like, I just want to say thank you so much for kind of like telling people about the real India and what exists. And I'm like, that is for me, that's like people say, what is impact look like in your job? I'm like, that that is success, right? Like if someone feels seen or if someone in the world understands a place a little bit better and doesn't have the same bias they would have had, then like my job's done ultimately.

SPEAKER_02

India has very bad PR sometimes, unfortunately, which it should not be that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

You are a champion for women founders, migrant founders, and a lot of marginalized communities, like you've spoken about. What have you learned from this work and how has that changed you?

SPEAKER_00

You know, I think it's good to set the context of why for me, which has always been because um I'm a white male, uh, that comes with its ease and comes with its benefits, right? But like I grew up um super working class and found myself in spaces like that military space where I felt like the smallest marginalized person and like a complete alien to that world, you know. And I then see my mum, I I got bullied as a kid because I was hadn't a single mum. Right. So like when when I Which makes no sense. No, I know, right? It's honestly it should be the opposite. Exactly. You should be like support this person because they need extra support, right? So I grew up and when I first um I I felt like I'd I'd always been someone that, you know, because of I guess this travel and this experienced um economy that I was working in, I'd always been someone that was and and working with like asylum seekers and things, I'd always been someone that was like really conscious of seeing my privilege, understanding marginalized communities. Um and I'd never really um but I'd never really had a chance to do anything in that space. And then when I first started coming into the tech and innovation space and seeing um all the terrible stats around gender equity, um, seeing the barriers that migrant entrepreneurs face um and people of um different class, I was like, this feels like a purpose to the feelings that I've already kind of had and and have resonated with like ultimately, you know. Like I feel like my experiences never made me feel like I had um I had a had an advantage, um, but it's like I know I have for many reasons. So um that's really driven me to I guess move into this space. It's a hard place to work in because I feel like there's so many good people, um, there's so much good intention, there's so much good action that takes place. And then you look at the stats, and I just don't feel like things are really changing.

SPEAKER_02

No.

SPEAKER_00

Um especially in the gender equity space, which is really sad. And we you know, we live in the multicultural society now, but uh doesn't always reflect in the tech industry. Um and I remember um going to a talk at South by Southwest uh a few years ago and um I forget who it was now, but one of the keynotes there saying, you know, we don't want to live in a world which is just built by white 20-year-old male tech bros. And I'm like, that's exactly that's exactly it, right? We want to live in an equitable world, so we have to make sure we have an equitable founder ecosystem to to do that. So um I I think really like I I've I've gone through my stages, I've gone through my par parts where I was a huge male advocate for women, and that's something that I still am, but I think maybe less so vocally. Um and then the same thing with migrant entrepreneurship, um, same thing with class, but I feel like the cultural piece now is kind of where I've found my real strong um I guess advocacy, my long-term advocacy, and I'll always be a supporter for every marginalized community. But it's like, how where do you put your effort? Where do you really throw your hat in the ring? Right. And so doing a lot of this work now across Asia and across cultures is where I'm like, yeah, like I want to make sure people feel like um they're supported when they move here, uh, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_02

You found your purpose, which a lot of people don't get to. So I've been looking for it really hard.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like that's people actually look there, right? I for me, it's like that's what we're on the planet to do, you know, like to actually make it a better place. So and I'll still stand up for everyone. Like, you know, for me it's like every time we've got an event on, I'm like, right, there has to be a gender split, like it has to be equal, you know. Um I do a lot of advocacy still in that space, but it's like this cultural piece, I think, is where I've noticed that's my superpower. That's my story. That's my story, you know.

SPEAKER_02

So that makes sense. I think what's beautiful is that without using the word privilege, you kind of said that you acknowledge your privilege in the world and then looked at how you can use that to the benefit of other people and to uplift them, which I think is is really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

I remember being an asylum, I was talking about this yesterday at home, being an asylum lawyer and sitting across I was 24 and I was sitting across in London, sitting across some a Syrian man who was fully in oppression in Syria who was 24. And his story was I think that he was um I think he'd got some gang or something chasing after him, and it was a terrible story, and you saw it all the time, right? Because people would literally want to ch change their lives, um as you would as well, right? So, and you're like, he got rejected asylum, I was trying to help him, but his story was just terrible. And I remember looking and thinking, if I was him, I'd be doing the same thing. I'd want to be trying to make myself a better person, right? And I've had the passport lottery, I've won the passport lottery of being born in the UK and then been able to move to Australia. And every time I apply for a visa, it's like, oh yeah, of course, you're British, come on, like come through. And I looked at this man and just it it struck me then that I should always understand the privilege that I've got and try to help others that don't have that sort of privilege because who am I to, you know, why should I deserve better from the world? Um so and then you know, marrying someone uh from India and and and that growth and understanding that journey is now just really accelerating again that that kind of feeling and that understanding of what privilege is and how you should use that and be responsible for it.

SPEAKER_02

For sure. You posted on LinkedIn, I think it was last week, um, which really shocked me. And I was actually talking to Amy about this. Um and it was something like you said that a couple of years ago you were really anxious about public speaking. Which now I I just can't really believe that. But what I took away from that is it's so easy to look at someone and think they've got it all figured out. Like they are natural. It looks like you were born being able to do all the things you do with hype media and everything, but that's not the case. You kind of had to push yourself, take risks, and develop over time. Um and I just wish more founders realized that it's okay not to know how to do everything or not to be confident. It will come with time.

SPEAKER_00

I think it comes from the British self-deprecating humour, you know. Like that is uh that is ultimately, yeah. But I think I I don't I feel like I started to realize that the more success I had in the world was when I was the most vulnerable.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

And it really actually came about from when I first started to share like I guess moving into that female advocacy space was because I started sharing my mum's story about domestic violence. And then everyone started turning around and be like, wow, this is uplifting and we empowered by this. And I started seeing my content metrics go through the roof, and that wasn't the driver, but I'm like, oh, I'm reaching so many people here. And I feel like I got so much respect from that, and also lots of personal growth and sort of satisfaction from that, almost closure, right? And so for me, it's like I try to remind myself to be authentic in in the sense it's a very cliche word, but in the sense of like telling people if I'm not good at something, it's because I've worked hard or because I I didn't used to be, you know, or there is potential. I want to make people feel inspired rather than looking at the internet and going, God, this person feels so far from what I can ever achieve. I feel like unmotivated by that. It's like I think it's our responsibility to be like that. And and not not everyone can, but like I I've kind of carved out my little niche in the world, which allows me to be that. And I it's probably the my favorite thing about it working in this industry is that like if I feel something I can tell people, and it m generally helps people relate to that or feel better or feel inspired or whatever, and uh or feel seen, and it also works for me as well. I get to like kind of tell people my story, you know, and like talking about I I never went to therapy, so talking on podcasts about my mum's domestic violence is kind of almost my way of sharing my store, or on LinkedIn posts, or whatever it is, you know. Or I I've do a keynote about it sometimes as well, and it's like I feel very blessed to be. Able to do that. And I I think that the closer my personality has got to my work, the more success I've had and the happier of a human I've been, and the more confident I've been. Because it just feels like I can turn up and be myself every day. There's never a mask on. There's never said this to my partner yesterday, and I was like, I don't think that's why I can't work for anyone else. Full time at the moment, at least. I don't want to have to change who I am. Like you can you tailor things slightly if you're doing different jobs or projects or whatever that is, representing different people. Like I was saying to you before that we started, I was like, Can I swear? I've started, I rarely do now when I'm talking on things.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um I threw one in because I was like, oh, as a treat to myself. But um yeah, I think that's it, you know. And so like that speaking, I want that speaking post. It's something that probably rotates that content a couple every couple of months um and talk about it to people because it's like I want that person that is shit scared of doing it, there's another one, um, to actually be like, oh, if I've seen Dickie on stage talking to thousands of people, if that's where he was then, I can also do the same and I can also grow the same, right? So um, and it's not to brag and be like, look what I've done. It's more just like a if you feel the same as this, don't count yourself out.

SPEAKER_02

Wise words. Wise words. Is there any parting advice you'd like to give founders listening? Um the audience is pretty broad, some are in Europe, a few in Asia actually. Um so yeah, what advice

be courageous, get uncomfortable, and why he's moving to india

SPEAKER_02

would you give them, irrespective of where they're located?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I would always say that I think I've said it, but I'll repeat it, which is like pick the lifestyle you want to live in the world. Um make sure everything's got honest intentions and is making the world a better place. I I really struggle to work with entrepreneurs that have got um products that are just purely about capitalist intentions or commercial. I I understand that, but and and and I always ask people what their why is beyond that to try to understand what they're doing this for, right? If they want to make loads of money, then what what what are you gonna do with that? Where are you taking that? So if we all you know collectively innovated to do good things, can you imagine the world we we'll be living in? It would be an absolute utopia, right? So think about that um and think about what your why is and be really honest with that. And then for me, this my my word for the year is courage. So just be courageous and take that risk. I think if I look back on myself and give myself, you know, if I gave myself the advice um I'd want when I was say 18, 20, I took I was very courageous, maybe not as an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02

You were, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I was courageous in the other things, moving countries and picking different jobs and working in high performance industries, but I always felt like I was too nervous to be a speaker or entrepreneur, all these things. But turns out like these things happen if you just be courageous and keep trying and keep um getting uncomfortable, which is literally why I'm moving to India right now. Because I'm like, life's comfortable at the minute, I need to change that and make it really hard for myself again.

SPEAKER_02

You heard it here? Be courageous and get uncomfortable. Thank you, Dickie. This has been really good.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.