S2 E4. The Rug Pull Playbook:The Entrepreneur's Journey with Adrian Bortignon

What do you do when the entire industry you've built your career in disappears from under your feet? For Adrian Bortignon, co-founder of Kongo Group, this "rug pull" experience wasn't just a crisis—it became his playbook for agility and survival.
In this deeply honest conversation, Sean Dunne sits down with Adrian to explore a 15-year entrepreneurial journey that began with a "white-knuckle ride." Adrian shares the unfiltered story of going from a two-person income to zero while starting a family, the immense financial pressure of the first six years, and the persistence fueled by a desire for one thing: choice.
He reveals his number one regret—working for free—and how an early lack of confidence became his superpower of over-preparation. Adrian also offers a forward-thinking perspective on the rise of AI, explaining why he embraces it as a massive opportunity for scale rather than a threat to his business.
Topics Covered:

• [01:20] The Entrepreneurial Upbringing: Growing up in a family where self-employment was the norm and having a "when, not if" mindset.
• [02:26] The First "Rug Pull": The raw experience of being inside the music industry as it collapsed in the face of digital distribution.
• [07:00] The Founder's Insecurity: How a lack of confidence in the early days was transformed into a superpower: meticulous preparation.
• [09:38] The Evolution of Kongo: The strategic pivot from a broad e-commerce consultancy to a specialized CRM implementation firm to stay ahead of market devaluation.
• [14:19] The "White-Knuckle Ride": The brutal reality of the first six years, going without an income and navigating the immense financial pressure of a startup.
• [16:18] The Ultimate "Why": How the long-term goal of having more choices for his family fueled his persistence through the toughest times.
• [18:15] His Biggest Regret: A powerful warning to new founders about the danger of undervaluing yourself and working for free.
• [19:47] Escaping the Bubble: The critical mistake of isolating yourself and why seeking external advice from day one is non-negotiable.
• [23:23] The 4 Core Values: A look inside the "North Star" that guides every decision at Kongo Group.
• [34:40] The Future of Service Businesses: The strategic plan to move from a pure service model to productizing their intellectual property.
• [38:20] Embracing Disruption: Why Adrian sees AI not as a threat that will make his business obsolete, but as a huge opportunity to scale quickly.
• [46:06] His Proudest Achievement: The profound success of building a thriving business alongside his wife.

Memorable Quotes:

• "It was always a matter of when I would start a business, not if I would start my own business."
• "It was a real white-knuckle ride for, I'd say, for the first 5 or 6 years."
• "Don't work for free is probably what I'd say."
• "You can easily build a bubble around yourself... you just need to expose yourself to professionals and make sure you're getting advice from all angles."
• "Simplification as a discipline in our business. So they're the 4 key things that I'm always referring to."
• "I don't see AI as a risk that in 12 months' time my business will cease to exist. I see this as an opportunity to scale my business quickly."

Resources Mentioned:

• Kongo Group: https://www.hellokongo.com/

Connect with Our Guest:

• Connect with Adrian Bortignon on LinkedIn:https://au.linkedin.com/in/adrianbortignon

Connect with the Host, Sean Dunne:

Website: https://dominiumcapital.com.au/dominium/

LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/sean-dunne-76067429

Thank you for tuning in to Origin to Ambition!

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. It helps us reach more aspiring entrepreneurs just like you. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Sean Dunn, and welcome to Origin to Ambition, The Entrepreneur's Journey. In this episode, I sit down with Adrian Bourtignon, co-founder and co-owner of Congo Group, along with his lovely wife Alex. Congo Group builds CRM systems for their clients to go to market. As always, a lot of pearls of wisdom come out of this chat. So I invite you to sit back and enjoy this episode of Origin to Ambition. Welcome to Origin to Ambition, the show where we explore the small business entrepreneurs' journey in business. I'm your host, Sean Dunne. Let's get into it. Adrian Bortignon, uh, welcome to Origin to Ambition. Thanks for remaking the time to be on.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

G'day, Sean. Thanks for having me. Happy Monday morning to you.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

It is a happy Monday morning off a nice quiet weekend. We've lost the second summer weather that we've had in Melbourne, but uh we were spoiled in April.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

It was magnificent.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

It was, it was indeed. It was. So again, thanks for being here. I appreciate it. In full disclosure, you and I have known each other probably about what 46 years? A long time. Given away some ages there. Um so we've known each other a long time. But uh I really appreciate you doing this for our listeners and viewers. So thanks for being here. And so what we'll do, we'll kick straight into it. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background before you went into business generally?

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Got it. So background, northern suburbs boy, parade boy, as you are, and went to uni for one year, then decided I wanted to dip straight into the workforce. So bumped into a job in the music industry and basically worked for free. I said, I'll work for free until you give me a job, which became a bit of a pattern for me. It's one of my learnings. It's uh something I certainly wouldn't do again. And so I eventually got paid for that job and ended up staying in the music industry in distribution and retail until about my mid-30s. But I grew up in a family where everybody was self-employed. My parents and my siblings, you know, have always run their own thing. So for me, always thinking about when I would start a business, not if I would start my own business. So basically working in the music distribution and retail business, which was interesting to experience that rug pull when everything went digital. So again, that's an experience I've taken through my career.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Well, actually, you just touched on what I was going to ask you around that. So you sort of say there was always that drive to be potentially be self-employed and go down that entrepreneurial route. But I'd like to touch on the rug pull that you just mentioned. But what did the music distribution business teach you about that sort of assisted you in going forwards?

SPEAKER_02 2:47

My roles were always heavily sales focused. So I think I certainly learned how to sell. Sell differently to the way I sell now. So back then I was buying something for a dollar and selling it for two, as opposed to selling professional services, which is what I do now. I would say I learned how to work in a dynamic, fast-paced environment. And there wasn't a lot of structure around the way things worked, and there was a lot of making up of processes on the spot, which I quite enjoyed. And that's, I think, certainly helped me be agile throughout my career and the process of owning a business.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah. So it was a good learning environment in that sense before going self-employed. But take us through the rug pool. I know that we know what you're talking about, but just for anyone who might be listening who never really understood what maybe a vinyl album even looked like.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Yeah. So the music industry as a whole had its head in the sand. So Apple and even some other platforms that started distribution digital music, I think made it very clear where the distribution and consumption of entertainment media was going. But the traditional record industry refused to do anything about that. And so what I experienced is basically that distribution of physical product disappear from underneath our feet. And that was an interesting experience. And I experienced something similar in my father's business as a manufacturer, seeing a lot of manufacturing go offshore to low-cost labour markets. So again, it's a bit of a pattern. I've always experienced it. And I experienced it somewhat again in the last six months in my current business, which I'm sure we'll get to at some stage down the track in this session. But I would say the rug pull was something that was plainly obvious to most people, but people in ownership positions and C-suite positions refused to accept that.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah, that's interesting. This may lead into what I'm about to ask you. So what inspired you? I know that the itch to put it that way was always there, but what inspired you to go down that entrepreneurial, self-employed route? And what was the pivotal moment that led you to go sort of end up where you are today? I know you didn't start. I have the benefit of a little bit of background knowledge, but I know you didn't start exactly doing what you're doing today, but that was the sort of the genesis, I suppose. Would that be fair? And how did you get there?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

I would say watching my family and close mates like yourself back themselves. I think I found that really inspiring because you do need to back yourself when you take that leap and go to start a business. And I wouldn't say I started off with as much self-confidence as I probably would like to have had. But again, being able to look around, see people that are important to me backing themselves consistently through ups and downs of running business, I found really inspiring. And on a more kind of practical level, the business I was working for at the time was bought by the biggest video rental retailer in Australia at the time. And I could see where the distribution of entertainment media was going. So I thought I'd probably need to bail here and do something on my own and take the experience I've learned.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah, you know, rental stores were uh not even when you they weren't the future then, I remember. So yeah, that was interesting. Hey, this is an interesting one. You just said you wish you had had more confidence going in, and that strikes a chord with me because my experience in talking with my guests and my experience in talking with small business owners who are my clients is that more often than not, and frankly, I was one of these as well, more often than not, you're overly optimistic sometimes when you go in. So, like maybe saying too confident is maybe a bit unfair, but too optimistic almost is what I would say. And I I was definitely overly optimistic. I know why. So I would say, broadly speaking, that's the mindset, but you just said you wish you had had more confidence. So it'd be interesting to tell what do you mean by that and how do you yeah, how would you articulate that?

SPEAKER_02 7:00

I'll often walk into a situation. I never assume I'm the smartest person in the room. And well, that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing, I agree. And just knowing that I was probably moving into a business type, again, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, used to buying something for a dollar and selling it for two, and moving into more of a professional services type business, uh, there was a lot of unknowns. I didn't really have many people around me who I could seek advice from around how to do that. So there was that unknown. And we're talking 2011. So the yes, we had the internet back then, but I think the information available was probably a little bit different and it was harder to maybe gain experience from uh colleagues and peers and a wider audience in a similar position. And it's I would say it's a personal character trait, too. I think generally I go into situations feeling a bit that way. And that's something that I think over the years I've learned how to turn that into a strength as opposed to have it hold me back.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

So if you don't mind me touching on this as well, then so how have you turned that into a strength? How do you use that as your secret power?

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Yeah, I'm always very, very prepared for every situation I go into, whether that's a new client meeting, a new project briefing, a mid-project briefing, developing you SKU on you um professional services line within the business, I'll always over-prepare. So assume that there is a lot that I don't know, assume that there will be potholes and things that I get wrong. So trying to minimize that as much as possible by preparing, not preparing to the point where I'm held back. It's always important to get things to market quickly. But yeah, just putting a lot of effort in. Whereas I used to be, I think part of me, maybe outside of business, I'll throw something over the fence and jump over and hope for the best without thinking about what the consequences might be. Whereas in business, I think I've learned how to be a little bit more careful about preparing for new things.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, so preparation is key.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Yep, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. So thanks for that. That's good. How'd you come up with the idea for the business? Now, this is an interesting one if you don't mind me stepping back. And again, I've got the benefit of insider knowledge. Can you just tell our listeners about your business, what it does, the name of your business, and then let's work back, if you don't mind, actually to how you started and what the idea was.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Yeah, for sure. So I run a business called Congo. It's Congo with a K. It's not the Central African Republic. And we provide CRM implementation and integration services. So they're the two key things that we do. So that's not what we started the business as, but right now we really help businesses coordinate their go-to-market teams. So across marketing, sales, and customer service motions and how they can create the best possible customer experience for their customers. And we do that through implementing CRM software. I didn't start the business doing that though. So in my previous role, I was uh the COO, then the CEO of an international entertainment media retailer. And I was out of the company of about 120 people. When we purchased this online retail business, I was the most qualified out of a whole bunch of unqualified people. So was thrust into the role of learning how to run a high volume e-commerce business. And when I say high volume, it was anywhere from five to twenty-five thousand transactions per day with distribution up in Hong Kong and customer service in the UK. So that's when the business I was working for was sold, as I previously mentioned, I thought I'll take my experience of running high-volume e-commerce businesses and I'll consult to Australian businesses looking to break into that e-commerce space. And I think it was true back then that I had experiences across all types of e-commerce operations. It was pretty rare here in Australia. So payments, treasury strategies, distribution, product acquisition, and having multiple places that you can distribute product from, how to build very best customer service processes, how to report on businesses like that, how to compete, how to market. So it was a really broad set of experiences that I'd managed to gather. So I went to market here just through my network. So I didn't do any formal marketing, I didn't do any advertising. I just really put the word out that I was open for business and got the opportunity to consult with a number of different businesses around how they might build and improve their e-commerce operations. And that started to morph into building e-commerce websites for those customers. And that took us into a software development pathway. But pretty quickly I figured out that we were starting to compete with non-professionals in that area that could easily build and deploy their own Shopify website, which I think is great. I think it's great to lower that barrier entry and put great tools into people's hands so they can be entrepreneurial. But what it meant was it just devalued our service, which is what caused us to pivot into CRM, which is a little bit more complex and it r certainly requires a deeper pool of experience across how go-to-market teams operate within a business.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

So thanks for that. That's a great sort of track, you know, to follow through about how your business journey being self-employed has evolved, you know, from the genesis of a broad scope of knowledge that you're bringing to the marketplace, but then sort of evolving through to where you are today with CRM, you know, development and implementation. So what are you solving there? And by pivoting into that space, what do you solve for your clients and customers?

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Um, generally, we're helping simplify complex business problems. So we're typically working across marketing, sales, and service teams. Often they're siloed within businesses. So they're not talking and communicating with one another, which helps build a great customer experience for their customers. So we're looking at their whole go-to-market strategy and helping them build what we call a RevOps or a revenue operations strategy within their business. But I would say to put it in a sentence, we're helping our customers simplify the way they do business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Awesome. That's awesome. When you go back to the early days of being self-employed, what was that like? Uh, you've sort of touched on it already with talking about maybe not being as prepared or feeling as confident as you'd like to. But what were some of the general challenges in business?

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Financial to begin with. It's that taking that risk and having the business owe owe us a lot of money. So and as you know, but your audience may not know, I run the business with my wife. So when we started the business, we went from two-person income to no income at all. So we had to make a huge investment in the business and it was a real white knuckle ride for I'd say for the first five or six years. Um the business didn't pay us back as quickly as we'd hoped it would, but we kept hanging on. And I think it's through that first five or six years that a lot of people would probably hang up the boots and go back into the workforce and try and find a job. We continued to push on. So we made the sacrifices, kept asking ourselves what is it that we can do to improve, earn more revenue, be more profitable, provide a better service, probably starting with the provide a better service because everything else tends to work itself out if you can do a really great job. And yeah, it was tough though. We certainly asked a lot of questions of ourselves through that first five or six years, and it coincided with us starting our family as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

So that always throws a bit of a curveball at you that one.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Yeah, I started the business within the three months of having our first child. So going, having your first child and then going to no income in the family is not ideal.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah. Yeah, I hear you on that one. Uh so on that though, so there's a couple of questions that for me that come out of that. So why persist? So why? Why did you look at it and say, okay, this is tough. We've got to tough this out. We feel like we know what we've got to do, which is just improve the service, just provide a better quality service product. And then the dollars will flow from that. But persist, what was the driver?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

I think knowing in the long term that if we get it right, it will give us so many more choices in life. And when I say choices, I'm not purely talking financial. It's being able to be present when our children need to do something or to take a day to do something for the family. So choices is definitely the why of why I persisted. It's not necessarily well, it's part of what drives me today, but I'm also driven by other things today. And like a speed of change in my industry certainly keeps me on my toes and keeps my brain active, which I really enjoy that chase.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's common, I think. Some people who are not self-employed look at self-employed people as if they are lucky or fortunate. And I don't mean that in a flippant way, but they sort of say, oh, you've got flexibility, that's awesome. But sometimes that flexibility is really the trade-off because the income's actually not there, especially initially. I mean, the income, you know, you build a business so that you've got the income downstream. But realistically, sometimes what the benefit of self-employed initially is is the things you just spoke about, is the flexibility that you can try to bring into the business where possible. I mean, you're running pretty hard early days, of course, but is that fair to say? Like, so it's not just, yeah, oh, well, I'm self-employed and I make so much money. It's actually like, well, no, I want to actually be around my kids and, you know, and not ask someone for the time off when I need the time off, sort of thing. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

And it's the way I grew up with my parents being able to take the time when they needed to, as did you. It's something that I wanted to give my children the same way it was afforded to me.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah, absolutely. So if you went back to the very start again of running, you know, your your own business, what's the one thing you would have maybe changed if you could go back and you might say there's about five things, but if there's one sort of standout thing, what would you maybe have done differently when you decided to kick off?

SPEAKER_02 18:15

I wouldn't have worked for free as much as I did, I think, in the beginning. So, and that probably speaks to the lack of confidence that I had early on in the business. But I I would encourage people to build that confidence, put the time and the effort in to understand what it is you're getting into and value that from day one. Don't work for free is probably what I'd say. You're right, there are other things like you know, get a proper accountant before you think you need one, get your business structure right, get your entities, your super, your insurances locked down, particularly today. It's probably a bit different 15 years ago when we started our businesses. And pay yourself properly. It's probably another thing as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

You sort of just touched on something there as well. This is a tricky one because you start a business and not have the capital behind you, you know, to do all of the things. Yeah, you've got a limited amount of resources and you're trying to extract maximum value out of those resources when you start because it's not a blank checkbook, so to speak. But what value do you place on building that team around you? And we'll talk about how you might do that. But in terms of, and I don't mean this is not a loaded question about financial advice, but you know, having a business or personal or both financial advisor, the accountant, the solicitor, you know, a mentor, whatever it might be, any range of advisors around you, the value of, you know, I think you alluded to, you would have liked to have had those on board earlier, but is that fair to say that you should you should probably build a team early?

SPEAKER_02 19:48

100%. Yeah. Make sure you're not existing in a bubble. And it's really easy to be so focused on being on the tools and delivering your service, whatever that might be, or selling your product. But you can easily build a bubble around yourself and you just need to expose yourself to professionals and make sure you're getting advice from all angles as as often as you possibly can. And I was probably too afraid of hearing the truth around certain things. So I'd shut that out, put my head in the sand a little bit, and just hope for the best, hope everything would sort itself out, but it never does. You really need to get that advice sooner rather than later.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah. And I guess too, back to that sort of resource, you know, your capacity around resources, and you may not have it. I mean, you know, sometimes in small business, you know, it's the old sweat equity type thing, you know, you've got to just flog away and do a lot of the stuff yourself because you haven't got the money to do it. How do you solve that? And you may not have done it early, and I may not have done it early myself, you know, in business. But how would you recommend or think about solving that problem early? You know, like you haven't got the money, you can't pay for infinite advice.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

So yeah, I would say there's certainly more options available to business owners today than there was in the early 2010s. But I would say speak to people, put yourself out there, build a network, find people who have real experiences and speak to them face to face. I think yes, you can go to a blog post, yes, you can read an article, yes, you might go and quiz a life language model, but you really need to speak to people, I think, to get a real sense of what it is they've experienced to really learn. So I'd say face-to-face advice is what I would give as advice to people starting out.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

I think too, and your thoughts on this. I think a lot of us when we start a business don't realise that a lot of other business owners are more than happy to share their knowledge and learning like, you know, over a coffee or a beer or a lunch or whatever. You know, like I I know it's not everyone, but you'd be surprised more often than not if you ask someone for a conversation, you'll get the conversation. Would you yeah? Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

There's like most of the time you there's a lot of hard work in running your own business and there's not a lot of accolades that that come. And to have somebody wanting to take a bit of time out of their day to learn from your experience is it's a nice feeling. So yeah, I would agree. Just ask and find people that have had genuine experiences.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Uh Sean Dunn here. And thank you for watching this episode of Origin to Ambition, The Entrepreneur's Journey. I'm a financial advisor who specializes in working with small business entrepreneurs and high-income earning executives. We analyze cash flow, build assets, and protect those assets to help our clients do what they want when they want with the people that they want to do it with. So if that's of interest to you, head over to our website and book an initial discovery call, and I'd look forward to speaking with you. It's funny, actually, I was just reflecting on that, you know, just then talking to you. And I think early on you sort of think you're imposing on people, like if you do ask. And the reality is most people like to be asked. So as you just said, you know, yeah, interesting. As a business owner, what values do you see as being most important, you know, in running a business and in business in general? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

For me, having a good foundation and a good strong value set is incredibly important. Something a North Star that I can always refer to. So the things that I'm always looking at is great value over great margin, long-term partnerships over transactions, current and accurate advice that's never recycled, and simplification as a discipline in our business. So they're the four key things that I'm always referring to. When I'm speaking to a prospect or I'm training a new team member, they're the key values, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

That's also interesting because I think there's something there that I'm not sure this comes out often, but you've clearly worked at Congo, you and your wife Alex have worked on, you know, having those values articulated and very clear. So that sounds like a well-planned set of value set. Is that is that correct? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

I'm very, very deliberate. It's something that and we're always challenging them as well. I think a lot of really just the game that we're in being in a tech industry, what I know today is only going to be a half-truth six months down the track. So I'm always I'm in the habit of always circling back and asking questions of the way we do things and what's important to us. I would say we do question those values, but they've been pretty consistent for a long time. I think they will outlast any changes in technology and probably apply to most businesses.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, I think some of those, you know, when you've got a high standard and somewhat, you know, it's sort of saying that you have integrity is pretty traditional sort of value to try and hold to, that they are timeless, I suppose, to a point yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

And availability too. So I'm often part of a sales process and then I hand off to a delivery team. But when we always kick off a new project, I'm always saying to our clients, call me anytime. Doesn't matter if it's a Sunday morning, I'm available. So being available, I think it's some old-fashioned customer service that I certainly see is rare these days, particularly seeing we're moving towards automating a lot of those go-to-market motions.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I think there's also a lesson in what you've just said. Because I think a lot of business owners fall into business sometimes. So sometimes, you know, they take their passion, or I'm not trying to be cliched here, but they take their passion and want to make it into a business, or they just happen to have a skill set and circumstances roll them into being self-employed. And they think, oh, well, I've got a skill set, I'll commercialise it, rather for want of a better term, or monetize it. But I think sometimes there is a bit of a falling into business, like sort of by almost by accident. And I think if you find yourself doing that, it's interesting that you should maybe step back and clearly define your values. So I guess I'm circling back to what you were just talking about, which was you've got a very clearly defined value set. Yeah. But sometimes that doesn't come early in someone's business journey. And it's probably a bit keen. I I think you'll agree. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but if we thought about that early in our business journey, it would actually just give you a framework to always sort of have as a fallback. You know, when things get tough or when you're not sure how to deal with a certain client or customer or patient or whoever it might be that you can fall back to that. Like, would you advise that is what I'm saying. Yes, uh, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

It's not always obvious that you need that. With a large business, you can have a much bigger team and great people around you to guide you. But when you're starting a small boutique business and the resources aren't there, then you don't know what you don't know. And that's where I probably we spoke about what I would do differently a little bit earlier in this session. I'd probably stick at it at uni. I'd probably finish some sort of business degree first as well. That way, if I am going to bootstrap a new business, then I know just a little bit more of maybe the formal framing of what to do and not to do. I I know we're always putting entrepreneurs on a pedestal who've left uni and started a business, but we don't often hear about the difficult things that they encounter on the way to becoming a huge success story. So I would say definitely a formal business education is valuable and something I wish I had done.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

It's interesting. I recently spoke with another guest, Jason Andrew, and he spoke about doing an EMBA. And we had a brief discussion around the value of the MBA. And it's not to suggest people need to have an MBA by any stretch of the imagination, but it's interesting because we both struck on the framework for thinking that it could give you. So so, and you've just basically said that framework that you would have liked to have maybe just having that little bit of extra time learning it in an academic sense, for want of a better term. Again, just having a framework for thinking about launching your business. So you see value in that. Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

Just a more sophisticated way to approach a problem, as opposed to seeing everything as a nail and whacking it with a hammer. Business is about nuance, and we're often operating in gray areas somewhere between black and white. And the decision-making process can have a huge impact on where you end up down the track. And if you don't have a great framework to work through problems or opportunities, then you find yourself making more mistakes than you probably need to.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

So sort of going back and forth a little bit here. So bear with me. I know when I started my business, I wrote a formal business plan. Probably coming off the back of my education at the time. So I was using what I'd learnt at uni to sort of build a business plan. Now, the plan didn't exactly go to plan, but as they often don't. But it did still give me, you know, actually, I mean, I wrote core values in that plan and we still have them today, 16 years later. So they have not changed. So setting aside education or higher educational, whatever, really what I'm also hearing from you is you would say to somebody setting out, you know, just stop and take the time and build that. Again, I'm not sort of talking about you've got to write a 200-page MBA style business plan because I'm not sure that they're so relevant these days anymore, especially with speed of change, like you were talking, which we'll come back to that. But just sort of stopping and setting up a plan and a framework for yourself before you kick off.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Definitely. Having some sort of framework that you can revisit, make sure that you're not going off track. The temptation to go off track or go down a rabbit hole in business is often strong. And that can take your eye off the ball. It can end up costing you money. You can make a mistake that puts at risk your core business. So having that framework that you're accountable to is important. Now, I was fortunate enough. I didn't go through a formal tertiary education, but having a close friend like you and sitting down or just having a chat over lunch, which kind of goes back to getting that advice from people that have been there and have done that. Yeah, I know in our case we didn't get together as a business advice catch-up, but you know, we'd sit there over lunch and I'd be secretly taking notes in the back of my mind. I probably need to do some of that. So it's good to have good people around you.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

You're saying a few things that I think are real nuggets of wisdom here. So I want to sort of explore them. So bear with me. But you just spoke about going down a rabbit hole easily, which is easy to do. Yeah. And sometimes, again, I'm I'm sort of telling a broad war story, I suppose, but I want to get your take on it. I sometimes have small business clients come to me and engage me as their business financial advisor. And one of the things I often identify in a lack of success in business, I can see the business is a good business. I can see that it's got a lot of potential. I can see that the owner or owners are really good at what they do. But I see them getting distracted by other so-called bright, shiny new objects and other opportunities or opportunities, quote unquote. Because what they're doing today is a bit tough. And I think that thing on the side becomes a distraction. It's almost like it's a feel-good distraction. Yep. And then we start getting into a bit of a bad cycle of the business owner chasing a different opportunity, mainly because what they're doing at the moment's a bit tough, but but they're just losing focus. And if they could just focus and stick to their knitting, things would improve. I mean, I would suggest you do that with your clients in your business.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Well, I've done it. So I've got first hand experience of having done it. It's certainly if you want to escape, a much cheaper way of doing that is to put a sci-fi movie on for a couple of hours, as opposed to escaping from the difficult nature of what it is you're doing in your core business and going down a rabbit hole. So I invested in a series of magazines in the outdoor sports space, as you know, you a while ago. And that was just a distraction from my core business probably not giving me what I hoped it would at that stage. So yeah, getting distracted is I think it's a huge risk. But but the distractions tend not to come up when you're doing well. I think maybe it's often a sign that maybe you need to rethink about what your core business is giving you and outputting.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

I I think that's spot on. Yeah, absolutely. And you just said something really good like just put on a movie and get distracted for a couple of hours. It's better value than going down a rabbit hole chasing some elusive opportunity that's going to cost you money and time.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Spot on. Like, even to the point, would you suggest like you're better off, and this is maybe a bit of a work-life balance type question, but like, would you suggest you're better off taking a week away with your family and spend the money on that and recharge your batteries and rethink your core business strategy and then just come back fresh? 100%.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

Yeah, like time away the family is always a great it's a great way to reconnect with why you're doing this in the first place, having the opportunity to spend time with your children. Also a hobby that you're into. So is I think a good way to decompress and do something where you just you know think about your business for a period of time. So um, yeah, look at it. I do it an outdoor sport that requires me to be absolutely dialed in on what's three feet in front of me at all times, which means I don't think about the emails that are sitting in my inbox or the quote quote that I need to write. Yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

I'm not talking about the emails crashing.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Spot on. Yeah, exactly. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

But advice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Time away with a family is always, I think, something it's great to do and so easy here in this great country to take a weekend away and yeah, put yourself somewhere beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yeah, absolutely. That's great advice. Talking about something that you've alluded to a couple of times through our chat, where do you see your business in the next five to ten years?

SPEAKER_02 34:40

I would say, so right now, we deliver a professional service around a product we do not own. So we implement a CRM called HubSpot, which is NASDAQ listed $4 billion company domiciled in the USA. And we're one of its top partners here in the JPAC region, but we don't own that product. And we've got no control over where that product might go or where its standing in the market might be down the track. So my goal is and something that I'm really focusing on now is productized IP around the services that we deliver. So there are a lot of opportunities to build products around the services that we deliver. So I would see us going further down that path. AI is playing an important role in that. We're coming up to our first audit for ISO 40 2001, which is a new global standard for managing AI business systems. It's a big undertaking for a small business like ours, but it just puts ourselves in a position, it's part of that being over-prepared piece that I spoke about early on. And AI is one of those pieces that every man and his dog believes he can give advice around. I'm sure you come across that in your industry too, but be demonstrating some sort of pedigree and investment in doing it properly, I think, is really important. But productizing the service that we deliver and have delivered at a really high standard for a long time is certainly the goal down the track.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Gotcha. Gotcha. I wouldn't mind your thoughts, probably question, a little bit of a question without notice and answer as much of it as you want to answer or not. But um on the AI, because you you just alluded to we see it in our industry, and you do see it. I I don't feel that it's as invasive in my industry just yet, but I would suspect you're seeing a like it a lot and and just your take on the impact in your industry and the positives or negatives.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Got it. So I can look at this through the lens of my clients and what my clients say to me. And everyone is interested, everyone knows that it's on the horizon, and there are different opinions around how close it is to being impactful on their business. My advice to everybody is be prepared and get into it. Start retooling the way you do things now, otherwise, you'll find all of your competitors fly past you very, very quickly. So rolling starts, really important. I would say that there are different types of, or I see different types of businesses. For me, the type of business that might encroach into the services we deliver is a business that has the internal capability and also has the appetite to do things in a progressive way. Most businesses that we work with have neither of those two characteristics in it. So you might have the capability, but you might have a C-suite that says that's too risky for us to do that, therefore we won't go down that path. Or we might see a business that's really keen to adopt an AI-native set of principles in their business, but they don't have the capability internally to understand and design what that might look like and to make sure you're protecting yourself against the risks that that delivers. So I would say it's here now. It's important, uh, particularly in our game. We go to market teams. So, yeah, how to market more effectively, how to sell and close more effectively, and how to give a better experience for your customers, customers.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

So you you see it as an opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

For my business, it's a huge opportunity. Yeah. So I don't see it as a risk that will in 12 months' time my business will cease to exist. I see this as an opportunity to scale my business quickly.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Yeah, that's where I was trying to get to. So I think a lot of people, without saying it, I think a lot of people see it as a threat.

unknown 38:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

And it is a I look, there's no doubt. There is a threat inherent in what AI may or may not be able to achieve, you know, that maybe a human could have done, you know, and that human now become redundant because of that. But that's right.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Yeah. The new business org won't be a manager and five people in a department. It will be a manager and five agents working in that department. Now, that might be a number of years away, but we are certainly moving towards that direction. And when I say agents, I mean AI agents. And businesses need to think beyond how most people are using AI at the moment, and that's like a search engine. You're basically putting a question in and getting some sort of response. But we see sophisticated businesses now having AI agents spending money on their behalf. Um, so you're having strategies around making sure that wallet is protected and your AI AI agents don't run amok, which is a risk. Yep. Genuine risk. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Well, look, I wouldn't suggest that I'm at the forefront of using AI, um, but I definitely in our business progressed beyond using it as a search engine. And I have to be honest, it's probably it's at least delayed by, if not 12 to 24 months, us hiring two more people because we don't need them now, which is interesting. And I'm not suggesting we've got it to a level of sophistication that you would understand. You know, I don't look at it like I'm gonna be replaced by AI. I I see it as an opportunity to, you know, improve the speed and efficiencies and effectiveness of our business. And I think that's kind of what you're saying is that you embrace the tool for what it can deliver.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Agree. Yeah. And I think it's gonna reward businesses that have taken an approach to being lean. In particular in my industry, there's always been it's been a bragging point, how many people you hire. So head count as a bragging point. And I really feel for a lot of people now because they're going to have to figure out how to look after these people when jobs can be heavily automated. I've always run my business lean, so I feel like I'm being rewarded for that approach.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Yeah, and we're the same. I mean, I came from a previous role where I'm going back a long time now, but it was financial advice, you know, businesses were built on headcount. How many authorised reps can you get on board? That was the name of the game. It's it's interesting. I still see some businesses now, I'd say small financial advice businesses that sort of use it as a bragging right as well. You know, oh we, you know, we've got people who want to come and work for us, and that's great. That's admirable, and I'm not suggesting otherwise, but I've I sort of left, and everyone, anyone who knows me knows I was at ING uh prior to starting my business, and I loved, absolutely loved working for ING. But headcount for me was sort of just something I didn't want in my business from day one. I didn't want to chase headcount at all. If anything, I wanted more admin, not more authorised reps. But now with technology, the you know, even the admin as we're talking about now, and I sorry, I didn't mean to turn this into an AI chat. It's just that you've got it, you've got a unique perspective on it outside of what I've got and what some of our guests would potentially have. So that's why I went down that path. But uh it's being lean's to be rewarded uh these days going forwards, obviously. Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. Yourself personally, I won't ask about business because I think you've just given us where you want to push your business goals, but what are you working on personally? What goals are you working on for Adrian and his family?

SPEAKER_02 42:16

I would say to continue to be present in my daughters' lives. So I can see how much they value that. Well, I'm telling myself that hopefully. Well, hopefully they don't turn around as adults and say that wasn't the case, but I think continue to be present, and that's in their personal development, that's in their education, that's in any pursuits that they might have, any interests they'd like to chase. Continue to enjoy the limited time that we have as a family unit before our kids fly the coop and move on, which is something that is always in the back of my mind. How many summer holidays might we have left together before the kids are too old?

SPEAKER_01 43:00

So Yeah, the window closes quickly. It does. I think some people don't realise it.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Yeah, indeed. And just continue to stay active. So I've always been somewhat active, but it's difficult when you're busy. So now the diet might suffer or you might not be active as consistently as you like. But I've started lifting this year with a personal trainer, which has been really great, something different for me. I haven't lifted weight for 25 years doing that and really enjoying it, really enjoying challenging myself physically in a different way. And just continue to be in business. So I I've got no desire to flip my business and sell it and go and do something else. I'm enjoying it, enjoying the challenge of it. It gives my family a lot of options and choice. I I think doing more of what we're doing just better. And making sure we're staying current.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Yeah, awesome. That's uh fantastic. What mindset or skills do you think you need to be an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Uh I would say you need to be comfortable with constant change around you. So if you need certainty around you, then it's probably not the right gig. Um be comfortable with change. You've got to be curious. I think you need to naturally go and search for answers to things or imagine things differently to your competitors. And you never stop learning, of course. If you're curious, you learn. And this is part of our values as well, but just the discipline to simplify. Everyone's adding complexity to their businesses, and we see that firsthand. But yeah, just the ability to step back and simplify. Um and that goes from the way you communicate, the way you write, the way you plan, and the way you treat people as well. Keep it simple. Everyone around you, whether they're internal or external, humans doing the best they can within their role. And if if you can do your best to look after those people, then it's a simple way to get good outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

So would you say, I'll ask this question, ask everyone this question. Would you say entrepreneurship is for everybody? Uh definitely not. No, mate. I don't think so. That's okay. I say this every time as well. Okay, if it's not for you. Um, it's not a certainly not a criticism, it's just not for everybody. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:27

I I think you can learn it though. I think someone can come out of the box, not suited to being an entrepreneur, and they can change that. I don't think that's set in stone. I think people can evolve into becoming entrepreneurs even if they're not suited to it out of the gate. You're walking into a vast, dark, unknown at the beginning, and that can be frightening for a lot of people. It was for me.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

You're really selling it to us now. Vast, dark, unknown. You want to have a sense of adventure about you.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

I love it. Looking back, what are you most proud of in the journey of Congo?

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Uh I would say successfully running a business with my wife. So uh, for those of you who don't know, my wife is the principal solutions architect of the business. So the real technical brains behind what it is we deliver, being able to build our friendship and relationship at the same time that we're running a business. I would say I'm most proud of that. And the team, the people and the clients we've attracted over the years. So people choose to stay and do their best work with Congo. So we're really proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Well, I think on that note, Adrian Bourtignon, that's a good place to end it. I've really enjoyed that chat, and I think there's a lot of little lessons sprinkled all the way through this chat that people could take away from it. And so I want to thank you for giving me the time. I know you've done it as a favour to me, and I really appreciate it. And I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend year ahead. Yeah. Thank you, mate. Appreciate it. I've really enjoyed the chat.

unknown 47:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

And that's all for this episode of Origins Ambition. Thanks for tuning in. To make sure you don't miss our next conversation, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen in. For more information, you can visit us at dominiumcapital.com.au and we'll see you next time.