Unconventional Business artwork

Unconventional Business

21 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 rating

The best companies are the ones that make it incredibly easy, and delightful, to do business with. It’s seamless, frictionless, intuitive. It’s not just a better experience, they’re actually disrupting our very notion of what consumers should be able to expect from companies. You see, Aussies and Kiwis are a hard bunch to please - we have some of the highest customer experience expectations in the world. And luckily for us, our homegrown businesses know this. This season on HubSpot's Unconventional Business, you’ll be meeting some of our best homegrown brands as they share how they’re growing and winning by disrupting the customer experience.

Marketing Business Entrepreneurship business customerexperience marketing
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Episodes

More Plastic Than Fish: ZeroCo’s solution to the single-use plastic crisis, why the future of business is purpose-driven and how to crack a Kickstarter campaign.

December 07, 2021 14:00 - 47 minutes

Every minute, a garbage truck worth of rubbish goes into our ocean. If we don’t make drastic changes as a global community, there’ll be more plastic than fish in our oceans by 2050.  Despite what we've all been taught, recycling is not the solution. In Australia, just 15% of plastic that we send to recycling is actually recycled. The other 85%? It ends up in landfill or in the ocean. We have to shift our thinking to a refill model, reducing the number of new plastics that we buy while simulta...

'We're in the Customer Service Business': How Prioritising Customer Happiness is Enabling Cars24 to Disrupt the $55B Used Car Sales Industry

November 30, 2021 14:00 - 46 minutes

Australia's used car industry's worth $55 billion and about 1 million cars are sold every year, some are new, some are used. Despite the huge market for car sales and our reliance as a country on personal vehicles, the process of buying and selling used cars is fraught with risk and hasn't evolved a great deal over the years. Whether you're buying a car off Gumtree or from Dave at the dealership down the road, you never really know if you're getting an absolute steal, or a total lemon. Given ...

That's Personal: How a Marketplace Model is Challenging the Norm for the Aged and Disability Care Industry

November 23, 2021 14:00 - 25 minutes

Ever wondered just how the aged care and disability services industry actually works? Well, this episode's for you! Like many developed countries, Australia has an ageing population. Today, there are around 3 million Aussies who are aged 70 and older, and just under half a million people living with a disability who access support services through the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Together, older people and people with disabilities who live in their own homes, with care and support, r...

Power to the People: How Good Empire's Empowering You to 'Save the F**king World'

November 16, 2021 15:00 - 50 minutes

It’s been described as ‘TikTok for doing good’, a global impact loyalty program, and an app that empowers and challenges people to take action on some of the world’s biggest problems like hunger, poverty and climate change.  Founder Andre Eikmeier joins us to share where his inspiration came from, how he realised that he didn’t need to figure out how to save the world, plenty of smart people before him were onto that, he just needed to figure out how to empower people to take action and have ...

Australia's Billion Dollar Problem: Clinical Trials, The Impact on Human Life and How HealthMatch is Changing the Future of Medicine

October 26, 2021 17:00 - 35 minutes

Manuri Gunawardena was 24 and in her final years of medical school, working on a brain cancer drug trial, when she witnessed the inequities in the clinical trial industry and the impact on human life. One patient in the trial was able to navigate the complex system and access a clinical trial and drug that was successful in curing their disease, another was not and sadly passed away. Manuri made her own life-changing decision and, instead of becoming a clinician, founded HealthMatch. HealthMa...

The Pet Ownership Boom: From Start-Up to IPO, the Qantas Partnership and What One Million New Dogs in Australia Means for Mad Paws

October 12, 2021 17:00 - 31 minutes

From pet-sitting a Labrador named Honey for a friend, to establishing a game-changing partnership with Qantas, going public in the middle of a global pandemic and the acquisition of Waggly Club - Mad Paws' co-founder, Alexis Soulopoulos, joins us on Unconventional Business this week. How did Mad Paws, a business founded on pet-sitting services, increase both bookings and new customer acquisition during a global pandemic, when the vast majority of Australia was grounded? What was the catalyst ...

Australia's Pandemic Pet Ownership Boom: How Mad Paws is Building Australia's Marketplace for Pets and the COVID-19 Impact

October 12, 2021 17:00 - 31 minutes

From pet-sitting a Labrador named Honey for a friend, to establishing a game-changing partnership with Qantas, going public in the middle of a global pandemic and the acquisition of Waggly Club - Mad Paws' co-founder, Alexis Soulopoulos, joins us on Unconventional Business this week. How did Mad Paws, a business founded on pet-sitting services, increase both bookings and new customer acquisition during a global pandemic, when the vast majority of Australia was grounded? What was the catalyst ...

Bonus Episode: Unconventional Business live at GROW ANZ with Sweat's Tobi Pearce

October 05, 2021 17:00 - 29 minutes

Tobi Pearce and co-founder Kayla Itsines grew Sweat, now a globally recognised fitness brand and one of Apple’s most downloaded health apps, from what was, in 2015, an e-book called the ‘Bikini Body Guide’' (or 'BBG', for those in the know).  Tobi joins us in a bonus episode of Unconventional Business, live from GROW, to talk about the brand’s explosive growth over the last seven years and how he and Kayla took the brand from e-book to app, and where they drew inspiration from.  Kat and Tobi ...

Unrivaled Impact: Humanitix’s Adam McCurdie on Scaling a Profit-For-Purpose Business to Solve the World's Biggest Problems

September 28, 2021 19:00 - 46 minutes

Back in 2015, co-founders and best mates Adam and Josh were looking for ways to give back to the world through business. They asked themselves: is there a way for us to break into an industry and set up our own social enterprise where we have 100% of our profits go towards closing the global education gap?  Starting out with no equity and sharing Adam’s salary on a handshake deal, they’ve built Humanitix into an incredible organisation, giving close to $1 million a year to education projects ...

Bonus Episode: Unconventional Business live at GROW ANZ with She's on the Money's Victoria Devine

September 21, 2021 19:00 - 30 minutes

 Building an online community is tough. It’s something many organisations try, and often fail, to do. So how did She’s on the Money’s Victoria Devine build such a large and engaged community in such a short space of time? How did she think about community building? And how much of the brand’s success does Victoria attribute to their community? Join us in a special bonus episode of Unconventional Business live from GROW ANZ, where James and Victoria talk about community building, the dire need...

The Rise of Femtech: Modibodi’s Kristy Chong on Leading Social Change, Competition and Breaking Down Taboos.

September 14, 2021 19:00 - 37 minutes

A decade into Modibodi’s impressive journey, founder and CEO Kristy Chong joins us to talk about where her big idea came from, how she's harnessed the intersection between technology and sustainability, and the mountainous challenge of launching a new product when your category is as taboo as periods and incontinence. We talk about competition and why Kristy’s not afraid of it, the critical role of trust for brands and consumers, how it felt to have one of the most-complained about advertisem...

Something's Brewing: How Four Blokes Are Making Booze-Free Beer Heaps Normal

December 17, 2020 21:50 - 45 minutes

Ben Holdstock and Pete Brennan, co-founders of Heaps Normal, are part of a movement to disrupt an entire category and have set out to change cultural norms around drinking and destigmatise non-alcoholic beers. They’re part of a movement to disrupt an entire category and have set out to change cultural norms around drinking and destigmatise non-alcoholic beers.  What’s it like breaking in as a small player in a big market? What impact does their mission and purpose have on their work? And how ...

Mission Critical: How v2food Are Changing the Hearts and Minds of Aussie Meat Eaters

November 25, 2020 04:33 - 53 minutes

Australia’s one of the biggest meat-eating countries in the world. And demand-supply is a very real issue. If we keep eating meat at the rate we do today, we’re not going to be able to sustain it. Creating an alternative is all well and good, but as a brand, how do you change the hearts and minds of Aussie meat eaters? What does the future of alternative meat look like? And how much will brands matter in this category? Andrew May, v2’s Chief Growth Officer, joins us on the show to answer our ...

Playing By Their Own Rules: How Xero Changed the Bookkeeping Game

November 18, 2020 05:50 - 51 minutes

Xero has changed how people think about accounting, challenging the status quo of dry & dull by going far beyond being a software provider, to impacting communities & the lives of small business owners.  Today, they’re a rapidly growing global brand. But how did they do it & what does it take to reach this level of success? Xero’s Chief Customer Officer, Rachael Powell,  joins us on the show to talk about why they’ve never done things traditionally & what this means for their customers, peopl...

Doing Things Differently: How Tech is Changing the Property Management Game

November 06, 2020 04:28 - 53 minutes

Owner or renter, we all have our property horror stories. Tenants late paying the rent, waiting weeks to have your shower fixed, no response from your property manager.  Property management’s an old school industry with rigid processes and a pricing model that makes little sense. Co-founder of Different, Mina Radhakrishnan joins us to talk about the opportunity they saw to disrupt the industry by bringing technology into what is a very human-oriented industry to create the experience custome...

Digging in: How iSeekplant pulled this industry into the modern age.

October 30, 2020 04:26 - 52 minutes

You probably don’t spend much time thinking about heavy construction machinery or how that industry works. It’s not exactly sexy or ‘cool’. But it’s often those very traditional industries that are ripe for disruption and ready for scale. CEO of iSeekplant, now Australia’s largest plant hire marketplace, Sally McPherson, joins us on the show to answer the big questions. How do you digitise an industry when you’re told “the internet isn’t real”? And why have so many failed at what the

Vino for the People: How This Aussie Company Took the Snobbery out of Wine

October 15, 2020 06:43 - 53 minutes

Standing in the aisle of the bottle shop looking baffled, being guided by an ‘anything but the chardy Aunty Jan drinks’ rule. We’ve all been there.  Wine snobbery belongs in the past, according to this online wine retailer. Their dream is to democratise wine by taking out the bullsh*t, simplifying the decision making process and talking to customers in a language they understand. We taste test wine and find out how you delight a nation of wine lovers with Vinomofo’s Head of Marketing, Marian...

You Snooze, You Lose: Koala's Journey to Household Name

October 07, 2020 05:34 - 1 hour

From one of Australia’s first ‘bed-in-a-box’ brands, to exporting their products, & exceptional service, overseas. Koala’s CMO, Peter Sloterdyk, shares why the brands that do it differently are the ones that win, the dangers of choice paralysis & the lessons learned when they exported Aussie sarcasm Learn how Koala are thinking about localisation as they expand internationally, how they got consumers to ‘buy in’, & how you balance innovation and operations when you’re a growing business wit

That Will Never Work: Tiles and Errors of Building a Challenger Brand

September 29, 2020 05:44 - 55 minutes

In an era where almost everything can be sold online, selling tiles online doesn’t sound so far-fetched. But despite consumer demand & an untapped market, Drew and Floss were repeatedly told ‘that’ll never work’ when they set out to build Australia’s online tile store. We chat about transforming a traditional industry & the questions they had to answer. Can convenience trump price? Where's the sweet spot between being relatable & aspirational? And how do you fit one tonne of tiles in a Toyota

The Postal Wars: How Sendle Took On Australia Post

September 22, 2020 08:46 - 43 minutes

When we talk about parcel delivery, the likelihood is that we think about our personal mail, those new shoes you ordered, how long they took to arrive. But what does it feel like when you’re that business trying to delight your customer through a great delivery experience? We chat with Sendle's CMO, Eva Ross, on how you hit the trifecta of affordability, experience and being green, what it feels like to spur on change in your biggest competitor, Australia Post, & why Sendle turned down a $1...

For the Love of Toilet Paper: Meet the Aussie Toilet Paper Brand That's Making the World a Better Place

September 21, 2020 10:00 - 51 minutes

Meet the Aussie brand that’s made toilet paper cool. We talk with Who Gives A Crap’s founder and CEO, Simon Griffiths, on all things toilets and toilet paper.  Tune in and hear Simon talk about building the brand and their mission, how he crowd-funded their launch (including sitting on a toilet, on live stream, for two days), why they chose not to set the company up as a not-for-profit, and why they’re so focused on the customer experience, after all, isn’t it just toilet paper?