Nick Maxwell got cut by the same football club four years running. Cut at 14. Cut at 15. Cut at 16. Cut at 17, three minutes into a trial, with a snapped vertebra. He made the squad on his fifth attempt and still went undrafted.

Four days before Christmas, a phone call changed everything. Nick walks through the voicemail that told him he'd been picked up by Collingwood, the 200-plus games that followed, and how being captain had nothing to do with being the most talented player on the field. It was about the 1%, the tackles, the sprints nobody saw, and showing up for a team that eventually made him captain and led them to a premiership after 20 years without one.

Twenty years in sport later, Nick walked away from a stable, structured career to build something of his own. He's honest that the four years since have been harder than anything football put him through, learning IT infrastructure, managing staff, and figuring out leadership without a scoreboard to tell him if he's winning.

Stick around for his three life lessons: why resilience is the whole story, why he now buys himself time before reacting to anything, and what two decades observing the Melbourne Storm's most successful leaders taught him about chasing the extra 1%.

Find Nick

Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-maxwell-060a2922/

Eclat: https://eclat.com/

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Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Life After Launch is an Aussie Founders Club podcast.

🦘 Aussie Founders Club is a community for founders, operators, and investors navigating the Australian startup ecosystem. What started as an events-first, in-person community has grown into a network of thousands, connecting people building startups with the people who've done it before. Join the conversation and the community at https://aussiefoundersclub.com/

Connect with Megan Luttrell on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganluttrell/

Connect with Geo George on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/contactgeo/

🤝 Kairos Recruitment is a recruitment company supporting startups and scale-ups across Australia, helping founders find the right people to grow their teams. Led by Megan Luttrell. Learn more at https://www.kairosrecruitment.com.au/

💵 Mayfly Ventures is a venture studio building industry-focused AI and software ventures. Mayfly is an Australian AI venture studio. We work with industry leaders to validate, build, and scale AI ventures, starting with the strategy and commercial foundations most teams skip. Learn more about Mayfly's approach at https://www.mayflyventures.com/

00:00 Cold open: cut 4 times, then 4 voicemails

01:31 Welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Nick Maxwell

03:07 Manure at 12, KFC at 14, and getting cut from the Falcons 4 times

15:15 The Collingwood voicemails, and playing 200+ games

17:20 Not the most talented player: doing the 1%ers and becoming captain

22:13 Leadership styles, the Melbourne Storm, and the "finished product" trap

33:07 Media, an MBA in 18 months, and deciding to leave sport

35:57 Why Eclat, and building a "life MBA" into a workspace

44:04 Building the team, ownership, and trusting people to do their jobs

54:24 The hardest 4 years of his life: building Eclat from scratch

58:56 Life lesson 1: resilience is the whole story

59:54 Life lesson 2: buy yourself time before you react

1:02:41 Life lesson 3: chasing the extra 1%, with lessons from Craig Bellamy

1:09:35 Closing thoughts + outro

Shane Chanel bet his entire life savings, $20,000, on a four-wheel drive racing app when he was 14. It wasn't his last high-conviction bet. He went on to leave a stockbroking career to build Yondr Money, a digital bank that never became a bank, survived a hostile takeover attempt from his own investor, and is now building Kobble, the infrastructure that lets almost any business launch a financial product in weeks instead of years.

He's honest about where the drive comes from: a chip on his shoulder he can't fully explain, a family that worked hard for everything, and a day in 2012 he's never spoken about publicly before this episode, the day his uncle's family was found dead and he became next of kin for his baby niece. It's the reference point, he says, for everything since. Nothing has ever felt as hard.

Shane walks through the pain points that pushed him from asset management into building a bank from scratch, why he pulled out of the banking licence process, how a chance conversation with former ANZ CEO Mike Smith became one of his best investors, and how a wall covered in Post-it notes from fellow fintech Founders became Kobble.

Stick around for the hardest lesson of all: the hostile takeover attempt from an investor who'd only just come on board, and why Shane now tells every Founder to have the uncomfortable conversations early, before you need them.

Find Shane

Shane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanechanel/

Kobble AI: https://ai.kobble.net/

Kobble: https://kobble.net/

Yondr: https://www.yondr.money/

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Time Stamps

00:00 Cold open + welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Shane Chanel

02:54 From wanting to be an aeronautical engineer to financial planning and stockbroking

08:35 Identity, the chip on the shoulder, and working twice as hard

16:51 Betting his life savings on a racing app at 14, and the idea for a bank

25:53 Building Yondr, pulling out of the banking licence, and landing Mike Smith as an investor

38:48 The 2012 story: his uncle's family found dead, and the reminder that nothing will ever be this hard

45:27 Acquiring Shouta and building Kobble from a wall of Post-it notes

53:50 Kobble AI: prototyping a financial product in 15 minutes

1:02:09 Life lesson: the hostile takeover attempt, and why you should always do the prenup

1:05:12 Closing thoughts + outro

Darius Monsef has built a colour-palette website that grew to millions of users, sold two companies, raised over $40 million for a paediatric healthcare startup, and shut it all down. Twice. He's brutally honest about why.

Darius walks through how a joke website for rating colour squares became a design resource used by Adobe, how wearing his own branded t-shirt got him into Y Combinator, and how Creative Market sold to Autodesk just 11 months after launch. But the real story is what happened after the money landed: the quiet depression of an exit that wasn't life-changing enough, the $40 million healthcare business that scaled before it had product-market fit, and the moment on a plane, mid-fundraise, when he realised he might be lying to himself and everyone else.

He's honest about what it cost to walk away from Brave Care, why he now tells Founders to be quitters, and why the businesses that fail teach you more than the ones that limp along for nine years pretending to work.

Stick around for his three life lessons: why your health is the input that decides your output, why quitting well matters as much as starting well, and why Founders should set goals they can't reach and still call it a win.

Find Darius

Darius on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmonsef/

What he's building now: https://ozbrain.com

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Time Stamps

00:00 Cold open + welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Darius Monsef

02:16 Growing up in Hawaii, entrepreneurial parents, and the chip on his shoulder

06:48 Building COLOURlovers, the shirt that got him into Y Combinator, and 11 years to "overnight success"

15:27 Creative Market's fast exit to Autodesk, and why the money wasn't enough

21:29 Sightbox, moving to Hawaii, and the depression after doing "nothing"

29:32 Raising $40M for Brave Care, scaling before product-market fit, and the collapse mid-fundraise

40:53 Shutting down Brave Care, then Genie and Rides, and building Pre

50:03 Life lesson 1: treat your health like an athlete's, not an afterthought

55:16 Life lesson 2: be a quitter

59:55 Life lesson 3: push harder than reasonable, then give yourself grace

1:04:33 Closing thoughts + outro