#awinewith Ashley Baxter
MEET Ashley
Ashley is the Founder of Monty Compost Co.
Find Ashley here:
Monty Compost Co website and Instagram @montycompostco.
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:08):
So, oh my god. Ash, welcome to Spark tv. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So excited to have you here. So good. I mean, it's so funny, I'm so looking forward to this chat because literally we've been talking for the last 15 minutes, not on record, so I'm like, oh my God, we need to hit record because we've already got all the nuggets. That's so good. We can
Ashley Baxter (00:30):
Start with now.
Danielle Lewis (00:32):
That's right. Now we're prepared. Now we've got what we're doing, but why don't we just open it up to telling the Spark community what it is you do. What is Monte Compost?
Ashley Baxter (00:44):
So Monte Compost co, we have developed a monitoring device for composting, and now I just wish I had one on me, but don't. Basically it's a device that you stick into any sort of compost pile. It connects to our mobile app, and then it tells you basically how to compost efficiently, effectively, so it's clean, so it's fast so you can retain nutrients. It's basically just building the tools to help people compost. That's really what we're doing. It's really cool. It's very much a new growing area. Growing, pardon pun. Love that. But I know that a lot of people have a lacking or different perception of what composting really is. So I think another big part of Monty is just that education and awareness of compost.
Danielle Lewis (01:33):
So good. I love that.
Ashley Baxter (01:35):
A bit of babble, but yeah,
Danielle Lewis (01:37):
No, that's perfect. And so then composting cool, but how did you get into that? Did you always want to start a business? How did you
Ashley Baxter (01:48):
Ever since I can remember, I was like, I want to be a founder of a composting company.
Danielle Lewis (01:55):
Yeah. I knew from an early age,
Ashley Baxter (01:58):
Actually, I was kind of a weird kid. I remember when they asked me what I wanted to be, I said I wanted to be a podiatrist when I was in grade seven.
Danielle Lewis (02:05):
That is so random.
Ashley Baxter (02:06):
I know, because I was always really, it wasn't, not in a fetish way, but I was always really preoccupied with having clean feet. And so someone's like, I have
Danielle Lewis (02:15):
That too,
Ashley Baxter (02:16):
Doctor.
Danielle Lewis (02:17):
I have to wash my feet twice a day. It's a weird thing.
Ashley Baxter (02:21):
They have to be clean. And so everyone's like this 12-year-old running around being like, oh yeah, I'm going to be when I grow up. But now I ended up being a compost
Danielle Lewis (02:31):
Entrepreneur. Excellent. Bit of a pivot, bit of a life change. How did this happen?
Ashley Baxter (02:38):
How it happened though? So what I was always into though was sustainability and environmentalism. Always really passionate about the environment, about ology, about animals, but I didn't know anything about compost. So I'd been doing volunteering and being part of different clubs and all of that, and it wasn't really until I was getting towards the end of my uni degree and I did business management and it again, nothing related to compost, even though I'd been part of these groups for years, for almost a decade at that point, being involved in the environmental movement and it was literally just reading this book on agriculture and it's very relevant now. The book was called The Coming Famine.
Danielle Lewis (03:29):
Oh God.
Ashley Baxter (03:30):
It's really scary. It's really driven. It's predicted everything that we're going through now, but one of the things that they were talking about were the degrading soil that we have, the fertilizer shortages, all of these agricultural supply chain issues and how this incredibly easy, valuable, accessible solution which is taking the food waste that we naturally produce, whether it's your leftovers or avocado pits, whether it's grass clippings, all of the organics that come out of our lifestyle and returning that to the soil through composting. And I think it kind of just randomly when you stumble across something and you just can't get it out of your head and it's like I feel like I just kept coming back to it and being like, wait, so no one's doing this? Because at the same time I was getting into, through my business degree, I was getting into entrepreneurship. So everyone's always thinking about ideas and they're like, I'm doing this FinTech or I'm doing this bullshit, and then I'm like, compost.
(04:39):
Yeah. I ended up just doing this research project on it and coming first in that because I just went all out on the research. I wrote a 15,000 word report on a compost business proposal. I just got so obsessed with it and then I had 25 grand in my bank account to make that business, even though I hadn't really thought about how I was going to do that at all. And then I applied for an accelerator at my university and I got into that and then it all just became a reality and I'm like, okay,
Danielle Lewis (05:16):
I'm really a compost entrepreneur now.
Ashley Baxter (05:20):
Yeah. I don't think in really, I don't really considered the reality that the next decade of my life, I was just going to think about the word compost several dozen times every day. I don't think there's as many think. Wow. Yeah, that's kind of grim. But
Danielle Lewis (05:40):
I'm glad somebody's trying to save the world though. I remember hearing you speak at one of your events that we had in the scrunch office and you said that and you're like, I'm sorry, what? You're telling me that we can solve all the world's problems by composting? Why is nobody talking about this
Ashley Baxter (05:57):
No one? And it was crazy to me at the time, and that's why I got so obsessed with it, because obviously it's not just from an environmental perspective, it's just from a pure business perspective, you have this market of 3 billion tons of organic waste every year that's going to landfill that could be turned into a valuable end product. That's just a business opportunity right there. You don't even have to be environmental to see that as something. And so it was very logical to me to pursue it, the ball. I'm like, oh god, and I'm just being, what
Danielle Lewis (06:41):
Did I do?
Ashley Baxter (06:43):
I know. What did I do? It's good though. It's good. It, I'm very happy. Amazing. I say crying and I, it's so meaningful what we're doing, but it's been a very, very tough three years, three and a half years.
Danielle Lewis (07:06):
Well, it's a physical product. It's hardware, so that's crazy. How did you even go about getting a hardware product designed, developed, manufactured. I see you rolling your eyes and I'm like, oh, this is a story. This is the time.
Ashley Baxter (07:27):
It's so hard. That goes
Danielle Lewis (07:31):
Without, don't sugar coat it. Don't sugar coat it.
Ashley Baxter (07:33):
Like, oh my god. And everything is so expensive and you ship product and it all breaks at once, then you have to get it back and then it just broke the stupid reason and then you repair it and then you have to do a redesign and Oh my God. So I was an idiot. Looking back, that's probably one thing I would change is that I would do the software part first and then do the hardware part when we had a bit more progress. But what I tell myself now is we're very competitive now having a hardware component. Totally. Anyone totally who would try to copy us, it would be impossible. Not impossible, but it would take a lot of sanity and a lot of money. But I was an idiot. That's what happened. I thought that I did an IT degree and I did one course in electronics programming and I'm like, oh yeah, I can found a startup easy. Sorry, a hardware startup. I can solo start by myself with an IT degree as a 23-year-old. Yeah, no problem. No, it's really hard.
Danielle Lewis (08:48):
I kind of think though, if you don't think that way, you don't do it. If I knew what I was in for, I'm not sure if I would've started the
Ashley Baxter (08:58):
Business. That's a good point. That's a really good point. Even I'm not masochistic enough to willingly go into to that these three years of being, because even though there's the reward, it's still just like
Danielle Lewis (09:18):
It's hard. I know. And there are days where you're like, you know what, if I just worked in a job, how easy would that be?
Ashley Baxter (09:26):
Being able to leave work on Friday, get
Danielle Lewis (09:29):
Out.
Ashley Baxter (09:31):
No, we love our job actually, just on that, that's one of my favorite quotes that a mentor has said to me is the best part about being your own boss is you get to choose the 15 hours a day you work. It's so true. It's like I got all this flexibility to grind myself into the dirt or to the compost in my case.
Danielle Lewis (10:02):
Absolutely. Well, at least just saving the world whilst you're grinding yourself into the compost.
Ashley Baxter (10:06):
Exactly. And see that's something that I remember is I have to remind myself as well, as much as I whinge about this sort of thing, I did a corporate internship before my last year of uni and it was only three months and everyone I worked with was really nice and the work was challenging, but I learned a lot and it was a great workplace. Awesome. I knew after three days I was like, I can't do this. I knew, and it wasn't during the big bushfires, but it was the summer before, so there was still some really devastating bushfires happening, and I just remember every day I turn the news, I just felt sick because it's like, oh my God, there is all of these climate environmental problems, which I know is my life's work and I'm working at this bank developing some app for them. I don't care about this. And I know that if I had spent these past three years doing some grad program at a consultancy or something like that, and this is no shit to anyone who does that, but as someone who very much knows what their life purpose and passion is, years,
(11:25):
If I had done that, it would be, and I couldn't be happy.
Danielle Lewis (11:31):
Oh my God, totally. I will whinge every day of the week about what I'm doing, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. So I did. I'm a little bit older than you and I worked for I know. I know. Thank you. Thank you. It's all the concealer, it's all
Ashley Baxter (11:49):
The Botox for me.
Danielle Lewis (11:51):
Love it. But I worked for years in corporate and had no, so I didn't even know this is how, speaking about being an idiot, I'm like, I didn't even know that you could start a business. I didn't even know. It's so funny. Everyone's like, when we did our first capital raise, they were like, oh, what did you do? What was your strategy? I was like, I didn't even know somebody that could lend me a hundred dollars, let alone invest in a business. It was total flying blind. So actually I'm just stoked for you that you know what your life purpose is and you get to start on it early. That is so cool. There's so many people who are 40, 50, 60, 70 who are just grinding out in their corporate day jobs because they don't know what they're interested in passionate about or that there's another way.
Ashley Baxter (12:41):
I see that so much and I think one, yeah, I do feel so lucky that I know every day when I wake up, if I accomplish something around this, then when I'm 80 years old, I'm going to be happy with the life I've lived. But I went through, I tried so many different things though. When I graduated high school, I went to a film college for one semester, and then I studied psychology and international relations, and then I did international business and all that time I was doing these different kind of jobs and internships everywhere. Of course there was hospital and then there was also a marketing job and an IT desk job, and I worked in China and Denmark as part of the university program, and I just tried all of these different things and I knew quickly, I really trust my gut. I'm like, okay, this part of the job I kind of find interesting, but not going to do it long term.
(13:48):
So I think that by doing all of that, it was literally just by process of elimination that I was able to really say, no, this is the issue and that I care about and this is the way that I'm going to work on it. And I do feel so privileged that I've been able to do that and I've had the opportunities to do that. So I just feel like for anyone who's going to university or gone to university, you have the ability to find what your life passion is, but you have to be willing to give things up. You have to be willing to try something and not be embarrassed or ashamed to say, this wasn't for me. It's not a failure, but it's just figuring out that this isn't the right path and trying the next one.
Danielle Lewis (14:39):
I love that so much. I feel like some people, especially people who go through corporate careers, they're always like, I've got to at least be here for one to two years, or it's going to look bad on my resume. I'm like, what? It
Ashley Baxter (14:53):
Has out your resume. You never get a job with a resume these days anyway.
Danielle Lewis (14:57):
Yeah. Oh my god. That's the truth.
Ashley Baxter (15:00):
Yeah. You just don't, if you're getting a job, honey, come on
Danielle Lewis (15:08):
Enough, enough people,
Ashley Baxter (15:10):
You've got to find the company you want to work for. Stalk every single person who works at that company, connect with them on LinkedIn at the same time, and then strategically like their posts until time you just cold message the recruiting officer how you do it.
Danielle Lewis (15:30):
I love how this turned from a business interview into this is how you land your perfect job.
Ashley Baxter (15:35):
That's how I would hire someone. Seriously, I think the modern workplace is changing so much and these traditional ways of you get a regimen, and this comes back to starting your own business as well, the number of consultants and freelancers and different kind of, you do part-time for three days a week at a company and then you freelance the rest of your time, the career, or I feel like people need to stop thinking about work as a job and more as a vocation. And it's this thing that you're going to be doing for the rest of your life. You need to find meaning from what you're doing. And that doesn't mean it should be, it has to be always interesting. God, I fucking hate answering emails. I hate 90% of the job I have to do. Me do. I hate so much of what I do, but even if I've had the most boring day, I still leave being like, nice. You know what I mean?
Danielle Lewis (16:37):
Oh, totally. And I think it's so interesting because as business owners, you want people working for you who think that way who go, I want to change the fucking composting world. And they stalk you on LinkedIn and they talk to you about what you're interested in and their vision for the future. That is the kind of employee you want. You don't want someone who's like, well, I've done this and I've done this, and the recruiter said, I could get a good wage if I worked with you. That sucks.
Ashley Baxter (17:04):
That actually sucks so much. And with those people, you're never going to be a good match because if they're approaching working with you like that, then they're going to approach working with the next person and leaving you like that. So I think that that's why I love, oh my God, team Monte is they're all so incredible. Tell me about that actually. Amazing. Everyone. Oh my god, I could talk about my team for days. How did
Danielle Lewis (17:34):
You find them?
Ashley Baxter (17:36):
So, oh my god. So it's actually really funny. So I would honestly just call her my business partner. So Phoebe, she joined after I'd been working at Monte for a year and on the business operations side while I started moving into product more, but we'd known each other since high school. So we have literally known each other for 10 years and she is just, we're very similar, but we're also quite different. I don't know. That's
Danielle Lewis (18:09):
Like, that's very confusing, but yes,
Ashley Baxter (18:11):
Canceled that so much. But we're very different, but we get on so well and because we're friends and because we've been friends for so long, we can be honest with each other. We can tell each other to shut up, we can be rude and then be getting on the next minute. So that was so essential in being at an early stage startup because when you're at a startup, you can't afford the veneer of professionalism that corporations do. You can't afford all that stuff you're working out of, we worked at Phoebe's house for three months and you just have to do things differently. So she was just essential in that first year of us together after we raised money. But then once we did our second round, we brought on a product owner junior, and he's just the smartest person I've ever
Danielle Lewis (19:09):
Met. Oh my God, I know Junior. He is. He's amazing. Oh God, he's
Ashley Baxter (19:14):
Brilliant. He's like everyone's guru as well. He'll just come out, don't even get me started. And then Emily, and she's our marketing person. She's a hustler. She's 21 and she's just worked so hard. She's just going to take over the world. And then we've got Louis Andin and they're kind part-time analysis developers. So they do all kind of the research on the analysis side, and they're both geniuses. Louis was the one who studied mathematics, and then he works at Cyro on his PhD. They're both brilliant, and I'm just sitting there. I appreciate my role in bringing it together, so I'm not meaning to discredit myself or anything, but I talk to all of them and I'm like, these people are so much harder than me,
Danielle Lewis (20:11):
But that's what they say.
Ashley Baxter (20:14):
Yeah, you want to hire people better than you for sure, but every day I'm sitting today a Lewis, were in the lunchroom, blah, blah, blah talking, and I was like, Hey guys, what's chatting about? And they're like, oh yeah, we're talking about mark of chain matric back filtration. I'm like, what?
Danielle Lewis (20:34):
Well, I'm going to go now with my wine.
Ashley Baxter (20:37):
I'm going to email someone. It's funny. But yeah, I think that's the other thing I guess that makes this journey worth it is the people you get to work with. I compare them to every other job is like, oh my God, it's not even a comparison. Working with the people who would work at a compost startup or just a startup in general. There are a different breed of people. They are so creative and so inspiring every day. So I really love that as well. I think we got onto this tangent because you asked about a hardware startup.
Danielle Lewis (21:19):
Oh my God, I think so. Well, and I was going to say, yeah, I was even going to say, so yes, a hardware that's insane. But the other thing I wanted to know is now that you have a team, how has life changed for you? How has your role as the startup founder evolved now that you've got people around you?
Ashley Baxter (21:41):
I think what happens is that just when it was just me, I was doing everything and that literally everything I wanted to deep, deep everything. I'm getting war flashbacks, doing everything, and then you bring one person on and Phoebe came on and she started focusing on more the business side so I could then that took off 40% of what I was working on there. And then I was able to allocate that to more product company related stuff. And then Junior came on and he started focusing on, obviously he just owns the product like a boss.
(22:31):
And it's the same with Emily focused on marketing. I was doing both of those roles. I have a hundred percent faith in them. I barely touch those functions anymore. We do check-ins and stuff, but they get the mission, everything. They just do everything. And it's so funny, I always get compliments, particularly on the marketing because it's so outward facing and people are like, oh my God, your socials have stepped up so much. They're so great. I'm like, it's literally this incredible person. And I think that's the really cool thing is that you get, even though I enjoyed some of those parts of the job, I would rather see someone take that on and really own it and do better than I could possibly do best for the company. But the downside of that is that Microsoft is boring, is all I do is answer emails and do invoices and call people and follow them up and reply to shit. It sucks. At least I got to do fun stuff before now I'm just boring.
Danielle Lewis (23:44):
You're a manager,
Ashley Baxter (23:46):
I don't like it. I don't want to be a manager. Just lemme go back to my compost. It's mostly management stuff, but again, it's not that hard. It's stressful, but I don't think, I wouldn't describe the work as really hard anymore. Maybe it's still hard, but it's not complicated anymore. It's quite straightforward now. A lot of the complex problem solving related to operations or market or product, I've got these amazing people who solve those problems and now my job has just kind of become removing barriers and stuff and making it as easy as possible for them to do that.
Danielle Lewis (24:32):
And I assume if you raise capital again or if you do those types, you'll be in that super high level strategic stuff.
Ashley Baxter (24:41):
You don't get to touch anything else. But I mean I think that's a good thing. I think you need to give ownership of those areas to the people who are running them. I think that was one lesson that I learned is stepping back from micromanaging, it's not healthy to grow a business. There are a lot of things you'd learn very quickly when you are doing something like a hardware and software startup that you have to learn very quickly, otherwise you spend tens of thousands of dollars on tooling and parts and stuff that breaks. It's fine. It's fine. Fine.
Danielle Lewis (25:22):
How did you find, as you were doing that, did you uncover any shortcuts if someone was like, Hey, I've got an idea for a hardware product. Did you figure out any kind of shortcuts to avoiding those problems? Or was it, sorry, you're actually just going to have to go through the pain.
Ashley Baxter (25:42):
Yeah, I think you have to just go through the pain. It depends what hardware it is. I think if the hardware already exists, if what saying is I want to make a lamp, which I'm saying because there's a lamp in front of me, I want to make a lamp, but the lamp is red or the lamp is made of fire or the lamp is something, it's something that already exists, but kind of different.
Danielle Lewis (26:12):
But you are making it different.
Ashley Baxter (26:14):
You can find the shortcut is you hit up China and you find someone who already does that and you get their team to make an alteration.
Danielle Lewis (26:25):
Yeah, gotcha.
Ashley Baxter (26:26):
That's your shortcut. You don't have to reinvent the wheel a lot of the time. This is something that a lot of hardware people don't know is that a lot of the time what you want to invent already, 98% exists. Don't try and make a hundred percent new product, make that 2% really special.
Danielle Lewis (26:49):
But
Ashley Baxter (26:50):
In our case, it is like a hundred percent new. Well, it's not a hundred percent new. I would say that there were certain aspects of it that we could have potentially reduced the initial design effort into, but not to a degree that it would've saved us years. We still would've had to go through all of this. So I would say hardware, consider what you're really inventing. Consider if, is it something that already exists and is slightly different or is it something that's completely different? And if so, is there a different way to do it? For example, if I would've done it differently, I would've started with the software, built up a user base and then went ahead and built the hardware. But you live, you learn, no harm done. My sanity is just gone easy. My stress tolerance smell though is through the roof. I could go through anything, nothing better than
Danielle Lewis (27:59):
Me business. God, that is one of the things that being a business owner teaches you strength and resilience that no corporate job could actually give you.
Ashley Baxter (28:09):
Oh God, no, seriously, you just get off with it. Nothing bother with me anymore. And I think actually one of the sub-segments that I think so funny is public speaking. I remember when I started entrepreneurship and I was giving presentation or doing a pitch and I was shaking. I was so nervous all the time, and now I'll just roll up and be like, what's up everyone? And be like it. It's kind of an entire group of really professional people. And I was like, so that's this thing. Yeah, I just wouldn't even put in any effort in front of a hundred people. I'm like, whatever. So yeah, I
Danielle Lewis (28:48):
Think because you know it now though, right? When you're first starting out, it's like you're defining what things are. You're defining who your customers are. There's all these questions that get thrown at you that you're like, I don't know. And then you have to go find out what your answer is to those questions and then by the end of it you go, literally, I say the same thing every time I talk about this.
Ashley Baxter (29:10):
I know. And actually that's something that has started, I started experiencing recently that I really love, especially as a young person, because at the beginning of this, because compost kind of falls into a lot of different categories. It's food waste, it's sustainability. We've got a hardware product, we're in recycling, we're in circular economy, we're in all the buzzwords around there and it's software. It's a lot of different areas that we fall into. So whenever I was back then a few years ago when I was first starting out, falling into talking into people who were experts in those fields, I felt very kind of like, and a lot of time people do this, they try and make you feel inferior. You dunno what you're talking about.
Danielle Lewis (29:54):
Sounds like a young business woman problem.
Ashley Baxter (29:57):
Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (30:00):
I feel you.
Ashley Baxter (30:01):
Oh my God. And I'm just so mad
Danielle Lewis (30:04):
Myself. Good. I'm glad we're mad about this
Ashley Baxter (30:07):
Three years ago for not calling those people on their bullshit. I had some VC tell me that I didn't know about compost, and I'm like, bitch, what? Sorry, I forgot that I was
Danielle Lewis (30:20):
No, no, no. That's right. We have wine, so we're allowed to get real on this podcast.
Ashley Baxter (30:26):
It's good in a way that remembering those experiences hardens you for future deal with future experiences. Oh my God. But at the same time, looking back, I'm like, how festival, how dare you? I have been researching this for years and back then, because obviously you're starting out and you look at these people and you're like, oh, you're so high up. You must know so much. And as you go through it yourself, you're like, actually, you've never started a startup. You've never started anything. You just sit there spending other people's money and you are going to sit there and tell me about something. That's my subject matter expertise. No, sweetie. Sorry.
Danielle Lewis (31:16):
Oh my god. No, I love it so much because I remember, so I started scrunch, which is software as a service tech platform, data analytics. Sorry, are you choking?
Ashley Baxter (31:30):
Just laughing. Sorry. I was listening to that though.
Danielle Lewis (31:34):
Basically so good. But I remember I went to my first tech networking event in Brisbane 10 years ago, and it was basically a room full of men with pizza and beer, what tech networking events were. That's what
Ashley Baxter (31:47):
It's, I love it. Idea for a, it uses blockchain and it's going to be innovative.
Danielle Lewis (31:55):
It was so funny because this guy was drinking a beer and basically spitting at me and going, oh, you'll never make it in tech because you're a blonde woman. And I walked out of that fucking networking and I was like, it's like a prominent dude in Brisbane technology scene as well. And I'm like, say that
Ashley Baxter (32:16):
Because you're a blonde woman.
Danielle Lewis (32:19):
I was like, but fortunately I've used that as fuel. I walked out of there and I was like, I will show you.
Ashley Baxter (32:27):
That's what always I was so mad always said is you need to have the attitude of someone who is just rejected from Australian Idol. You need to have the attitude of, do you remember they used to film them coming out and they're like coming, I'm going to be famous and I'm going to show all I going
Danielle Lewis (32:41):
To show them.
Ashley Baxter (32:44):
I'm going to show that fucking, and you know what? I did get to do it the other day. There was this angel investor when I first talked to him really early on. Oh, he was such a anchor and this networking event and I totally just like, you don't need him seriously. And that's the thing that I've found as you've got to
Danielle Lewis (33:06):
Find your people.
Ashley Baxter (33:08):
And that's why our investors are so incredible. They've been always just so respectful and I've seen them talk. They treat every founder the same, whether it's men or women, but it's definitely out there. But it's frustrating because it's in startups, I feel like the way that women are treated, it's either kind of like this really insidious, passive aggressive or little snarky comments like that that aren't super overt and you feel like you can't make a big deal out of it because it's just a snide comment from one guy, but they build up and it's like when you're going every single day and getting that, then it does build up and it's like, I don't feel like this is the place for me. Because even if it is just once a week or once a month or even just once, it's still that mindset is acceptable. Clearly said that to other people and haven't been called out. So it's either that or women are treated like a novelty in startups and that can be a little bit frustrating to kind of pandering.
(34:27):
I'm kind of in two minds about it because I really love promoting women in startups and working in startups and giving a leg up to the people who were traditionally not seen in these industries, but at the same time, don't attribute my success to the fact that I'm a woman. Don't say that I was successful spite of that. The only people who think that being a woman is a barrier to business success are people who make it a barrier. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's, there's nothing inherently preventing women being successful and needing all of these platforms other than the people who are creating the barriers and the ceilings. But that's just me having a win, having a wine.
Danielle Lewis (35:17):
I love that. I love that so much. I've done, I think five capital raises in the last decade. And so the amount of male VCs or angel investors that I've spoken to who I've said, yeah, things like that, you'll never make it because a woman in technology, I had someone tell me I was too perky, to which I replied, you are fucking lucky that I'm perky. This is hard. So I need to maintain this level of energy to give you a return on your investment. Anyway, that aside,
Ashley Baxter (35:51):
And you know that if you'd been a guy that'd be like, yeah, he was really positive, really upbeat.
Danielle Lewis (35:57):
I know drives
Ashley Baxter (35:58):
Happy,
Danielle Lewis (35:59):
Drives me, you're
Ashley Baxter (36:00):
A cheerleader.
Danielle Lewis (36:01):
Yeah, that could be. Exactly. But that's what it's like. It's the double standard. Isn't it
Ashley Baxter (36:07):
So annoying? It's so frustrating. And I think my mom was a queen. She worked her way up and spent 40 years at the same place, was such a hard worker. And so to me, I don't think I ever understood why is there, there's no barriers towards women that's nonsensical. And then actually getting into this space and getting those snide comments, I mean, how is that a thought? You're thinking what's wrong with you? Have you not seen the level of failure that occurs from men? How can you reconcile those two? How can you say, oh my God, the startup industry has such a high failure rate. Oh, it must because we have so many women in it. What That just makes no sense if any, you know what I
Danielle Lewis (37:04):
Mean? Exactly. Oh my god. Oh my God, you have just had a revelation. There's such a high failure rate and how many women go into business and how many women are underfunded. We can literally blame it on male founders right here. People are going to hate this episode, by the way. No,
Ashley Baxter (37:26):
I don't.
Danielle Lewis (37:27):
No, but I love what you said that the only because I feel exactly the same. I get what we go through because I've been through it, but I never want to use that as an excuse to hold myself back. I'm like, I will be successful regardless. And I love what you said. It's like it's only a problem if you make it a problem. You have to find, yes, it's a bit of extra work. We've got to deal with some idiots, but there are people out there that will support great ideas.
Ashley Baxter (37:55):
And you know what? I think if anything, and this is something that I apply it to anyone we work with from a compost perspective, but I think it also works from a diversity and gender perspective as well, because it's like if an investor in this example won't invest in you because you're a woman, but he invests in a man, then that male founder is going to have to deal with a sexist investor. Now that investor, if he's that prejudice, he's probably going to be a really difficult investor in a lot of other areas. Good people typically aren't prejudiced against different demographics. So in a way that's kind of like being a woman is kind of like a natural bullshit idiot filter. You know what I mean?
Danielle Lewis (38:51):
That is awesome.
Ashley Baxter (38:53):
It's the same as compost. It's like we get so many people who pass us over because it's like compost, but it's like, okay, so you are clearly a person who can't see opportunity, can't identify, maybe unconventional. That's still valuable areas of investment. Cool. We don't want people who can think be accepting and who are supportive and it's like, great, you've just helped us filter out the shit people. And I think that's one reason why we have such a great team because maybe we don't look like the cool FinTech startup that ends up attracting all the really superficial people and all the investors, they have to have a double male founding team where one's like this nerdy engineer and the other one's like Savvy Trust fund baby, whose dad's going to plow full of seed round anyway. Anyway,
Danielle Lewis (39:57):
You'd be spring to mind anyway.
Ashley Baxter (39:59):
I know, but that's fine. That's fine with me. If you think if you're going to have those kind of prejudices, then that makes it all bit easier for me to identify the people that I don't want to work with.
Danielle Lewis (40:14):
Oh my god, I love that so much. And you know what? That is the best way to look at not only investors, but customers, team, anything. It's like let people self-select themselves out.
Ashley Baxter (40:28):
That's it. It's like, okay, cool. Yep, I'm going to be as compost and lame as I want to and I'm going to end up getting people who are the same as that. So yeah,
Danielle Lewis (40:42):
That is incredible. Okay, so let's finish up with some words of wisdom. If you could transport yourself back a few years ago and give yourself some advice, because lots of people that watch Spark TV are kind of early stage founders or just taking the leap or trying to convince themselves to take the leap. What do you wish you knew all the way back? Oh my
Ashley Baxter (41:04):
God. Obviously buy Bitcoin, right? Buy
Danielle Lewis (41:07):
Bitcoin. Yes.
Ashley Baxter (41:09):
Everyone everywhere buy Bitcoin. No, I think that's
Danielle Lewis (41:15):
And machine buy Bitcoin
Ashley Baxter (41:17):
Default answer, but no, my actual advice to Ashley starting out, or anyone in this space that I guess a lot of people start out in which is this university co-curricular startup ecosystem. I feel like a lot of people come from that space or even networking events, hackathons, oh my God, whatever. Excuse me.
Danielle Lewis (41:43):
Real, real. Don't worry.
Ashley Baxter (41:45):
Whatever you're getting into, just don't listen to the bullshit. People are. The further into the startup journey you get, the more unprofessional and fake you realize it is. You realize that everyone is just trying to make it by and feel like and look like they know what they're doing because there's so much mythos that's been created around startups. You've got these gangster developers who are just cashing deals and doing all this stuff, and you go to meetings in a bathrobe and I'm the cool hackerman guy, and it's not like that. That's maybe 0.1% of cases. And all of those guys are douche bags. 99.9% of the startup ecosystem is people who are trying to do something really hard, but they feel insecure about doing that because they look at that 0.1% and the media shows that 0.1% to them. So I would say just keep the startup advice out of your head.
(43:00):
Not the advice, but the startup. Fear the culture. Don't look at it. Don't watch the culture. Exactly. Don't be a little culture vulture. Don't try and get in on that. Just find your idea, find your business, find your people, what you're going to work on, use startup methodologies and use the techniques in it, but don't get caught up in the bullshit and don't feel insecure. If you're starting a business where you're working at a startup, you are already taking such a huge risk and you're already going against the rat race. You are already doing something really brave and you should never let anyone make you feel stupid or anyone make you feel inferior because they sit behind a big desk and have someone else's money to throw around. So it's just, yeah, that wasn't one word of wisdom. That was a billion, but I
Danielle Lewis (43:56):
Love it so much,
Ashley Baxter (43:58):
Babe. Be proud of yourself.
Danielle Lewis (44:00):
Do you, you babe. No, but it's so true. Look, I literally could not agree with you more. I drank the Kool-Aid, I read all the MVP books, I did the Lean Start, whatever the fuck it was. I did all of those things and I actually created a business that I was miserable in, and I used to get rolled out by different government people to sit on panels. I was a woman in technology back then, and I got to this point where I was like, oh, this is all bullshit. And it wasn't until I really went, what do I want to do? What problem am I really trying to solve? Who do I want to hang out with for 15 hours a day and what do I want my business to look like? Because for me, my business is my life. The balance is bullshit for me. It's always going to be what I spend the bulk of my
Ashley Baxter (44:53):
Time
Danielle Lewis (44:53):
On.
Ashley Baxter (44:54):
What you want to bring your meaning in.
Danielle Lewis (44:56):
Absolutely. And I was like, if I keep subscribing to all of this startup culture, I'm going to be miserable forever, so let's flick that.
Ashley Baxter (45:05):
The whole premise of it is you're never good enough. You need to work harder. You're never going to be good enough. The deal's never going to be big enough. There's always going to be someone getting valued more than you, even though valuations are bullshit. Yeah, it's just a waste. It makes you miserable.
Danielle Lewis (45:22):
Oh, totally. I remember when we raised millions of dollars and then my PR person was like, nah, it's not interesting enough for media. I was like, what the fuck have I got to do?
Ashley Baxter (45:33):
What do I have to do?
Danielle Lewis (45:35):
You want Maybe that
Ashley Baxter (45:39):
The,
Danielle Lewis (45:40):
It's hilarious though. That's really interesting way to put it. It nothing's ever good enough.
Ashley Baxter (45:45):
It's never going to be good enough, and you're never going to be good enough, and as a woman in it, you're either going to be a novelty or you're going to be laughed at. That's it. You're either going to be put on this phony pedestal and treated like some goddess, but ascribed all these male attributes that you've been successful despite your gender, as if that's such a handicap or what you're going to be resented for your success, even if you are successful, even if it's by their definition of success, which is by no means anyone else's definition. I totally get that whole thing where they, because I feel like I did that for a bit from uq and it was like, oh my God, look, she did all this. She raised money. And I'm like, I don't care. I don't care. This is not helping.
Danielle Lewis (46:39):
And it's not what you're trying to build.
Ashley Baxter (46:41):
No, it's just bullshit. It's just bullshit. Learn to smell out bullshit. That is my word of wisdom. And I would know I have a compost startup.
Danielle Lewis (46:51):
Oh my God, there could not have been a better way to end.
Ashley Baxter (46:56):
Oh my
Danielle Lewis (46:57):
God. Ash, thank you so much for coming on. You're incredible. Cheers, love.
Ashley Baxter (47:05):
Cheers. Thank you.
Danielle Lewis (47:08):
Of course.
