Battle Scars of a SaaS Leader
Understanding the stories of resilience, strategy, and leadership is essential for success in the competitive sales world.
James will uncover the raw and unfiltered real-life experiences of sales Leaders, exploring the ups and downs and lessons learned in the high-pressure sales world.
Battle Scars of a SaaS Leader
Why Asia-Pacific Expansions Fail (and What Actually Works) with Duco Van Breemen - CEO Haymarket HQ
We unpack how Asian startups use Australia as a Western test bed, the cultural signals that make or break sales, and a repeatable path to validate markets fast. We also explore investor perspectives, AI reality versus hype, and why commitment on the ground beats fly-in fly-out.
• why Australia appeals for first Western expansion
• how to read Australian sales language and build trust
• reverse‑engineering competitor playbooks for fast intel
• when Australia’s TAM is too small and what to do
• hiring locally and supporting the first operator
• localizing business model, brand and sales process
• investors on Australian founders’ realism and capital efficiency
• AI’s real role in GTM and where it falls short
• profit for purpose and how Haymarket HQ gives back
• where to find and meet incoming Asia startups
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Connect with James
➡︎ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbergl/
Connect with Duco
➡︎ https://au.linkedin.com/in/ducovanbreemen
Host & Guest
➡︎ James Bergl (The Gentle Giant)
➡︎ Duco Van Breemen
Videographers/Editors: Romain Pondard/Klippable
➡︎ https://www.linkedin.com/in/romain-pondard
➡︎ https://www.klippable.com/
https://au.linkedin.com/in/ducovanbreemen
Why are you coming to Australia to invest in local companies here? And they said, well, the thing we found in Southeast Asia is, well, there's it's it's proven to be quite difficult to get a good return on investment there. And what we found in Australia is that most founders are used to working with very uh little capital. Um, they're more realistic and they've got a more global mindset. Um, and they feel that a dollar in Australia goes a lot further than the dollar with no interest.
SPEAKER_00:It's one thousand companies expand internationally. Working with governments and today he reveals my most expanded and the competitive intelligence showcase can actually work.
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned that culturally doing business in Singapore is very different to Australia. What are the key differences that you see in just doing business?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay, that's a that's an interesting one.
SPEAKER_01:So thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate it. I know we caught up a few weeks ago in the city, and uh we we share, you know, from a business perspective, um, similar goals, which is helping emerging um a lot, a lot of technology companies. I know you do outside of tech alone, but helping emerging companies build like world-class businesses here in Australia. And that's exactly the audience that we speak to or um commercial or technical leaders in those sorts of organizations, or you know, even reps or even leaders, and really keen to get your lens on um you know what you're seeing in terms of like the profiles of companies that are coming into Australia, the challenges um that they face and how you at the T at Haymarket are helping them. But before we dive in, you you've got an amazing life story of like the journey that you've been on. Like just tell us a little bit about that journey and you know where you started and how you got here to Australia.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. And and thanks for inviting me, James. Really excited to be here. Um yeah, so a little bit about myself, uh, in case you're wondering where the somewhat American-sounding accent is coming from. I'm actually Dutch, uh, born and raised in the Netherlands, uh, where I grew up in a small town and moved to the city and eventually felt a bit bored and wanted a challenge. Um, traveled to Thailand on a whim, found a small business there selling art, and I decided to start importing that into the Netherlands. That sort of kicked off my sort of semi-entrepreneurial journey and interest in Asia. Uh, loved my experience in Thailand, was like, wow, this is this is great. Uh, really got into spirituality and meditation and such. I thought, you know what? I need to go and experience that more. And I want to see what's happening in Asia. So I thought, you know what? I'm I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I wanna go on an adventure. And that's how I ended up in China. So I I uh I brokered a deal with the university I was in at the time who didn't have anything in China. There were no study exchange programs. So I said, okay, if I go there, can I then graduate early? If you can give me some points from my experience in China, uh, I don't want to pay for tuition. Um, but in exchange, I can be your poster boy to show how international and forward-thinking you guys are. And they were like, sure, they didn't really expect me to go. Uh, but I went and I uh I went to a second-tier city called Hangzhou, uh, which is a couple hours south from Shanghai. And that's where Alibaba is from, and some of the major brands that we know from China today. And I kicked off my sort of journey in China, where I spent about eight years uh working in everything from uh working with the Chinese government to attract foreign direct investment into China to working with Dutch companies and uh fashion, as well as everything to do with tech, mostly industrial tech, so helping water tech companies into China, which is a major issue, elderly care tech. Uh eventually I grew tired of China. Um the pollution was pretty bad. I, you know, as a small town boy from the Netherlands, being surrounded by 25 million people in Shanghai, at some point got quite a lot. So I decided to look for uh uh cleaner air and greener pastures. And that's how I landed in Australia. Uh and here I sort of fell into this job that I currently have. Um, it's uh it's a company called Haymarket HQ, which I helped set up. It's founded by a local entrepreneur who runs a family office and seed funded through the state government. And our role is to help companies expand into Australia from abroad, as well as from uh Australian companies, to expand into harder to enter markets in the Asia Pacific mostly.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing. And we we were talking before, and it sounded like you had some pretty good um accents, not accents, but you can your Chinese sound seems like it's it's it's it's okay. Like your pronunciation, that's the word I was looking looked pretty good. So did you did you learn to speak Chinese when you were over there? Yes, I did.
SPEAKER_02:So what I quickly so to get into China, I had to get a visa. To get a visa, I either had to find gainful employment, which is very difficult as someone that's never been there and doesn't speak the language, or uh enroll into a local university. So I enrolled into uh, I think it was the number three university in China. As a foreigner, as long as you paid, you could get in. Whereas for your average Chinese person, it was a terrible competitive journey to get in, right? So we were surrounded by the smartest people in China, uh, whereas I was just some random guy who happened to pay a couple of grand to enroll into a Chinese language course. Um fortunately, I did that because the one thing you quickly learn in China is that nobody speaks English, especially not in second, third, fourth tier cities. Uh, and that's where um I decided, okay, you know what? I'm gonna make a real effort to go and learn Chinese. Uh, I did some of that in class, but a lot of it was when I'd go uh out on adventure. So I take a taxi to somewhere, I'd walk through the neighborhoods, I'd try and talk to people. Um, long story short, what ended up happening is you talked about accents. I adopted an accent of essentially a southern Chinese farmer because most of my time was spent in taxis and talking to locals that had moved from smaller uh regional Chinese towns into Hangzhou. And I uh unknowingly adopted their accent. So when I went to Shanghai and Beijing, people started making fun of me saying, Why do you sound like a farmer? Um so yeah, so I do speak some Chinese, but I don't know if it's the most beautiful accent.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's uh a lot more talented than myself and many other people that I know that you can you can speak it in the first place. Can you write it as well?
SPEAKER_02:Or just uh yes, I can. Write and read. But uh yes, but not that good. Okay. So uh I really tried to focus on the spoken part. Yeah, as that what is what I found was the hardest to master, but also the most useful. So if you want to do business in China, uh you generally work with Chinese colleagues. Um, I wanted to be able to communicate with them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so I focused on that more than my reading and writing. Yeah, but I can text in Chinese just fine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, wow. That's impressive. It's impressive. So you've uh you've launched um Haymarket HQ um a number of years ago. Yeah. And um you work closely with the the Singaporean government, is that right? Yes, yeah. Um, so I'd imagine that your experience in China has has yeah, paid itself forward in terms of local nuances, languages. Um you may have seen like a natural person to help them come to Australia. Um tell us a little bit about the relationship that you've got set up and and w why did you choose them to work with and and why have they chosen you in terms of what you'd hope to bring to them?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a that's a good question. So maybe I can I can take a step back. So a lot of the companies that we work with are earlier stage tech companies, right? Anywhere from from C to to to you know, maybe series A, B. Yep, uh, but generally still early stage. A lot of those companies need a little bit of extra support when they go abroad. Um, generally they need a bit more support because a lot of times the founders may not be, you know, commercial folks. They might be more technical people and they need a little bit more hand holding and support. Uh, but also helping them into new markets, or their, sorry, I should say their chances of success to successfully expand into new markets are relatively low, especially when they're still early stage. They don't have the processes, they don't have the playbooks yet. Um governments naturally want to help these early stage tech companies grow. If we look at Australia, Australia's economy is still pretty agrarian. It's um, you know, our biggest exports are essentially rocks and crops and education followed by tourism. Um, we're very much focused on just a few key markets like China. Um, and it's not very diversified. So, what the government is trying to do is diversify their economies, diversify their export markets, and to uh create a more long-term, sustainable, competitive advantage um for their for their economy. So they do that by supporting tech companies, tech companies that don't uh necessarily sell rocks and crops are in education. Um they invest a lot in helping them grow and helping them expand into new markets. And we work with these governments to do that. So we sell uh programs to governments. Um, and the whole point of those programs is to then help their communities of companies expand.
SPEAKER_01:And then most of these companies, so working with the Singaporean government, I'm guessing they're Singaporean headquartered, Singaporean founded. Yeah. And is uh is are they built in is English is their primary language?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. So Singapore is very unique. Yeah. Right? Singapore is uh it's it's a it's a it's a very densely populated, but beautifully very well organized, well-oiled machine in the heart of Southeast Asia. Uh, one of the most successful economies in the world, really. Um and uh yeah, they they mostly speak English. Um we work with companies that are headquartered there. A lot of times these companies actually originated maybe from China or India or Malaysia or elsewhere, uh, but they're headquartered in Singapore because Singapore is a great place to do business in. It's safe, it's easier to raise investment there, and it's a good springboard into other markets. Uh but there are stark differences between how business is done between Australia and Singapore, and that's where we uh try and play a role.
SPEAKER_01:I would imagine that Australia and Singapore is uh is a lot closer than say Australia and some of the other markets. So the localization, the language component being probably one of the key factors, but I'm I'm I'm keen to hear some of the others as well. Um so you've let's just say you got some some seed, a series A type companies. They've they've got you know they're they're flirting with product market fits in their own regions. They're thinking, let's let's go out and test the waters in another market. Is Australia the first market that they typically think of? Um, or would they they try to go, let's go straight to the US? Yeah, good question.
SPEAKER_02:Um, look, I think anyone that's in tech eventually wants to go to the US.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right? Because that's where the big bucks are, that's where the big market is, that's where your potential big exit is. So the US is always the end goal for 99% of the companies that we talk to. Uh, but they also recognize, most companies also recognize that to succeed in the US, uh, you need very deep pockets, you need a clear playbook, and uh you need a little bit of help and support there as well. It's a long-term plan. So a lot of them use Australia, say Singaporean companies use Australia as a first Western test market, right? To say, look, we'll we'll test our products or our services in Australia to see how Western audiences respond. Uh, we'll try and uh polish our value proposition for Western audiences, uh, but also we'll validate this whole piece and show that to investors because it's a lot easier to raise money once you've had some success in another Western market than to say, yeah, we're a Singaporean company, we'll go straight to the US, unless you already have some traction. So a lot of Singaporean companies use Australia as that sort of test bed, make their mistakes here, uh, improve, then go back to investors and say, see, this worked. Yeah. Now we want to go after the UK or the US.
SPEAKER_01:What I've noticed about Australia is that culturally it is quite a forgiving culture. They and they've got the attitude of, I'll give it a go. Yeah. And they'll usually give it a go before they ask too many questions. Whereas other markets are, you know, even in Europe, they'll they'll do a lot more diligence and testing up front. So it I think it's a it's a fantastic market to um to try and get initial feedback as well. You mentioned that culturally doing business in Singapore is very different to Australia. If we start there, what are the key differences that you see in just doing business?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay. That's a that's an interesting one. So it's something I've had to learn as well. And it's something actually that uh came up this morning when we were running a workshop on uh uh for small businesses to help them with their sales processes. Uh so one of the things I had to learn as a Dutchman coming into Australia is you know, we tend to be quite straightforward and direct. In Australia, uh, most people are not comfortable saying no. Most people are not comfortable with the potential confrontation that comes with perhaps saying no to something and would rather say yes and then ghost you or ignore you than to have that confrontation right there and then, right? And that's something that a lot of international companies struggle with when they come here. They say, look, we you know, we had a great conversation, everyone was excited. They say this was fantastic. Uh they said, let's circle back, uh, they'll come back in touch with you. And then I never heard from them again, right? And you're laughing because it probably sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_01:The circle back piece. Circle back. That means that you're not hearing from again.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:It's a half circle.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And and that's the thing. I said, yeah, when you hear that, and and you know, you do business here, you're like, oh yeah, I know what that means. When I first came here, I was like, that sounds fantastic. We had a great conversation. Um, and your every Singaporean or international company, not just Singaporean, gets really confused by that as well. So reading between the lines in Australia is really important. Yep. The second thing is Singaporean companies or in Singapore business is pretty transactional, right? If you have a better solution or a better price, great, let's let's work together. Uh, whereas in Australia, it's not that companies are necessarily looking for the best vendor. They're looking for the person they like to work with as well. It's more relationship-driven. It's harder to get that trust. Um, so it takes a very different sales approach, right? It's more around, hey, let's let's have a beer sometime. Let's grab some lunch, like we've done as well. Yeah, right. Maybe I'll invite you on my podcast. Just joking. But but it's that relationship piece that's way more important. Yeah. But with that also comes patience, right? Um, so a lot of companies struggle to understand how business is done here, how to build those relationships, how important it is to have boots on the ground. That's often underestimated. And you know this better than anyone. Yeah. That fly in, fly out approach works for some markets, generally not so much for Australia. So those are some very simple things that a lot of international companies sometimes uh sort of struggle with when they come here, or it takes them a while to learn.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, really interesting. And we uh launched a white paper on SaaS down under, and we interviewed a number of the the SaaS go-to-market um leaders, and that came out in abundance as part of that. You very much do need to have feet on the ground, it's relationship-driven, you look them in the eye and show that you're here for the long term as well. So um certainly uh agreeing in abundance with with your uh what you're saying there. Yeah. Um, and uh in terms of your role with Haymarket, are you part of what you're doing? I guess the first part is that that cultural translation is that correct?
SPEAKER_02:Um, yeah, that's part of it. So usually when we work with companies, we first try and figure out is there a market for you? And say if they're coming from abroad into Australia, is there even a market for you here? Right? Is it's so so we start with a bit of a market discovery piece where we're trying to make a go-no-go decision. Once we feel comfortable, like, hey, there might be a market here, that's when we start to figure out, okay, what should we do in order to take the next step? What are some hypotheses that we need to validate um to make that next step bit by bit? Uh so one of the things that that we do, and it's a bit cheeky, but um, you know, we we try and find them, say it's a Singaporean company, uh a sat a CRM company, say, that provides CRM. We try and find the most successful CRMs uh that are active in Australia, providers of CRMs. Um and we we try and figure out, okay, how did they enter the market? And we hope to learn from them, right? So um, but yeah, essentially what we try and do is we find the most successful competitors of whatever company we're working with. We find people that have left that competitor, usually that have had a BD role or maybe a CEO role, people that had an overview of their overall business, that were involved with the go-to-market. Uh, and then we connect with them on LinkedIn or through a connection, and we invite them to a paid uh uh consultation, essentially, where we try and understand what their successful playbook was. And that allows us to quickly understand okay, if we were to enter the market, what will be some ways to do it? Uh, which segments are worth pursuing, which ones are not worth pursuing? And it just cuts down at market research from you know months to sometimes days and weeks.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, so there's that part of you know, how does you come in and what's the best go-to-market approach? And then the other piece you mentioned is like the addressable market as well. Is how how do um how do you think about the TAM and what is um like what are the indexes that you you look at? Is it size, is it growth? Um, and what what is the tipping point for a SaaS vendor considering this a good market?
SPEAKER_02:Tough question. I mean, we we generally look at the typical um criterion when you enter a market. So we look at is the market sizable enough? Is it growing? Uh second is who are the competitors? Is it fragmented enough or is it dominated by just a few players, like Poles and Woolies, for instance? Um, and third is do we have sufficient market? Is it attractive enough from a financial point of view? Right. And we try and figure out those steps to make that go-no-go decision. And that's generally the approach that we take.
SPEAKER_01:And is there a an overall observation that you see certain types of business, whether it's big versus mid versus small, are more attractive to this market or particular industries?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, I might give you a bit of a left field answer to this one. Yeah, please. Um, so one of the things that we found is Australia has several very significant industries, right? If you look at mining, education, broadacre farming, right? There's a uh SaaS. There's some major industries here uh that are globally significant. But there's also many, many other industries that are actually quite small. And you'd be better off as your typical company to say go to Europe or go to the US or go to UK or go to China or wherever instead of focusing on Australia. Yet we see a lot of those companies still expand into Australia. Sometimes that's for test testing purposes, sometimes that's just to validate that they work in a Western market. But a lot of times it's because they have a relationship with Australia in some form or shape. That could be they've studied here, they fell in love here, their uncle is here, they want to retire here, they like surfing, they like the sun. Um, so whereas there are lots of rational reasons why companies expand into Australia, it really surprised us how many entrepreneurs decided on expanding into Australia for lifestyle reasons. Or an emotional decision.
SPEAKER_01:Or an emotional decision. And does do they come out and say that's the reason, or do you you actually unpack that and it's they try to disguise it as something else? Yeah, we sort of tease it out of them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think sometimes they may not be completely honest to themselves about it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Um, because we've had conversations where we said, and I've had this conversation yesterday, actually, where we said, look, it probably makes no sense for you guys to go into Australia. The market is too small, the margins are too thin. Uh, we have yet to find a successful case study of any other company in your industry to have succeeded here simply because the industry is too small. It's not, you know, maybe in a couple of years' time. Um yet they've decided, no, no, we that no, no, we no, we're still gonna go in. But it there's so many great opportunities around you. You you've you've got many other opportunities that you're working on that make a lot more sense. Look, we don't mind working with you, but we really want to manage our expectations.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But generally, then what comes out is okay, it's important because you know, my daughter wants to come and study here. Yeah. Um, actually, I bought a place here and I see myself living here in the next couple of years. So regardless of what you say, Duke, I'm gonna make this work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And then it's like, okay, that's that's fine too. Fair enough.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. No, that that's um super interesting. So let's we get to a position that a company has decided, whether it's a rational or emotional decision that they they want to come. And let's say that's an irrational decision. There's yeah, there's a there's a TAM today, there's a it's it's a growing marketplace. What is what is the framework for success with regards to um go-to-market development? How do you do that effectively from the right? People, process, systems, and whatever else I may not have mentioned.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like you're in a better position to answer most of that. Um, but I can I can I can perhaps focus on on that first bit, that sort of discovery. And then once they've got made that decision to come in, how I've seen companies do it. I don't think there's one right approach. Is there a wrong approach? Um yes. I've definitely seen uh, well, actually, that's probably more nuanced. Um I don't know if there is if there is a wrong approach, but I've seen a number of approaches mostly fail. It doesn't mean that they're wrong for everyone. Um, we briefly touched upon the fly in, fly out approach. Most of the time that doesn't work, right? Once you've said, look, Australia is the market I want to focus on. This is where I'm gonna build my business, flying in and flying out from wherever that might be, unless maybe New Zealand, but even then I'd argue it's probably not the best decision. That usually doesn't work. Just swinging by for a few conferences, expos, um, it doesn't allow you to build long-term relationships and it doesn't prove, it doesn't show your commitment to the local market. So that approach generally doesn't work. Um, what we do see work is that companies say, okay, we've made a commitment to Australia. Uh, we might hire either a fractional BD firm to help us try and get some leads and some conversations going and show that we have a commitment to the market. They'll have our business card, they'll have our email address, they just work for us a couple of days a week. So that could be one soft approach to get started with. We've seen some success with that. Uh, the second approach is to hire someone locally by talking to you, James, and to find the right people, basically. Um, but making sure that they're well supported as well. Some of the challenges we've seen there is if you hire two junior, uh, they might not feel comfortable running the show. They might need a little bit more support from the HQ or from people around them. If you hire two senior people uh and they find it a bit too difficult to make their first sales or to um do everything as the sole employee, that doesn't work either. So you need to find that sort of right balance, which why I said I think you'd be the guy to talk to about who is that right candidate. Um, but hiring is going to be an important one and then localizing the messaging, testing it, um, finding the right local partners, all the usual stuff.
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned earlier on that you you help them to build some of that process locally. Can you talk a little bit about what some of those um I guess that that evolution of their business model process looks like?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so um there's a few there's a few things in that. So uh one is uh um oftentimes we find that companies need to change their business model when they come here, depending on which market they come from, uh especially from Asia, right? Is that Australian businesses and consumers buy differently to say Indonesian businesses and consumers. So sometimes we need to change the entire business model and how we sell and and what we sell. So that's quite a that's a that's a big one. That's usually something that um you know most companies try to avoid, but that's that's one. Um second, then it comes to the localization of the offering, massive changes or differences between the markets there as well. Um, so um that's around the brand. So we look at business model, brand, and then it's the sales process. And this comes back to that relationship building and how we do sales. Um, in in Singapore, one of the uh uh beautiful things about Singapore is that if you're a tech startup, generally your first few customers are actually Singapore, Singaporean government agencies, right? They're they're very much are encouraged to work with local tech companies to be their clients to help them optimize their their their products as well before they help them then also promote within the local market. Um, but those companies that are very reliant on this, when they go to a new market where they don't have that support, like wow, okay, I now need to set up sales processes. And, you know, it was a lot easier for us back home where they kind of came to us. Now we need to actively go out. And it's not as simple as sending a LinkedIn message saying we've got a cheaper, better product, need to build relationships with these people. It takes a lot of time. God, okay, what do we do? So one of the things uh where we try and play a role in is to actually help them map out their sales process. So sort of laying the foundation for a successful sales process and team here in Australia. That doesn't mean that we'll do the sales. It's more, okay, let's map out what it would look like from first contact to close. What tools do we need? What kind of people do we need? What sort of uh standard operating procedures do we need?
SPEAKER_01:And that's it sounds like a lot of the information that allows them to scale globally, not just into Australia. They can take that playbook and then redeploy that across Europe or yeah, North America, the ASEAN market if they wanted to as well. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's that's our pitch. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, we we believe so.
SPEAKER_02:It's good to hear you think the same way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Excellent. And you mentioned the other side of the coin is helping Australian companies to go overseas as well. Yes. Um, tell us a little bit about that story. Because when I look at the Australian success stories of SaaS companies going international, like we don't have a massive portfolio of success stories. I don't know if you got an opinion on why that is. That's a yes.
SPEAKER_02:Um look, I I I like to think that we definitely have a number of success stories, right? We've got all the typical Atlassian Canva, etc. Right. And then back in the day we had Cochlea, uh Resmet, you name it. So so I like to think there are a few success stories. There's definitely a few. Um why do so many uh not expand abroad? Why are there so few success stories? Um look, I think overall the pool of companies here is still relatively small. Um, the the criticism you often hear from SaaS founders as well is that it's a very expensive place to start a company in. It can be very difficult to um get funding here, but also to get bigger checks, which allow you to scale abroad. Um but also on the other side is, and this is something that a lot of investors have told me, I said, well, tall pip tall poppy syndrome is holding us back, right? And I see you not. Okay. Um is that something you've seen?
SPEAKER_01:It's a cultural thing in Australia, it's whole poppy syndrome. Yeah. And I was wondering if you might mention that because I've I've heard this before as well. Do you agree? I think there's got to be something in it. Um, I think I think that it's there's a mix of things. I think that the um the the the capital is smaller, it's it becomes a vicious circle. You know, the the the chicken and the egg, what do you get first? The cash or the the success from that perspective. Um and then yeah, I mean the toll poppy syndrome culturally you get your your the toll poppy gets chopped off if they do too well. Um and yeah, I I I like to to think it's not real, but um yeah, what what are the investors telling you?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I think investors will always believe. That people are not ambitious enough because you know it's in their best interest if they are very ambitious, right? Yeah. They'll get a higher bang for their buck. Or um I think some of that is true. Um, but I've met plenty of very ambitious founders. And if I if I listen to actually what might be interesting is to share what I've heard from Singaporean investors. So these are very large global investors with offices in Singapore as well. So it doesn't mean that they're necessarily Singaporean, but they have offices there as well. Um and um they're quite active here in Australia. And I said, okay, why are you so active in Australia? You've got, you know, you're in you're in the heart of Southeast Asia. There's plenty of opportunities around. Why are you coming to Australia to invest in local companies here? And I said, well, um, the thing we found in Southeast Asia is, well, there's it's proven to be quite difficult to get a good return on investment there. Uh it's proven to be quite difficult to find high-quality founders that um don't overpromise. Um, and what we found in Australia is that most founders are used to working with very uh little capital. Um, they're more realistic, uh, and they've got a more global mindset. So they said the fact that they're not um that the fact that they're actually very realistic and they're not overselling it is something that really appealed to them. Um and I feel that a dollar in Australia goes a lot further than a dollar would go in Southeast Asia. So I hear different things. Yeah. My personal take is I think there are plenty of ambitious founders here. Yeah. Uh, but we're far away from everything.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I'm Dutch in the Netherlands. You don't build a company just for the Netherlands. You know, whether you like it or not, you'll get international customers, most likely. Right. Um, and you always have that sort of look at, okay, well, yeah, once we've done our little country, then we'll look at Germany and then maybe France, and then maybe, you know, Sweden, and you know, maybe we'll even try the UK and maybe we'll end up in Bermuda, who knows? Um, but they tend to have a more global from day one mindset. Whereas in Australia, you know, global means aside from you know, New Zealand and some of the smaller nations around us, that means a 12-hour flight away. So it's a lot, it's a I I think we're just in a very different environment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, but probably a bit a bit from all of those buckets. So with all of that in mind, like how do you help people? Like where where are you taking them from and to with the sites, the sorts of engagements that you're working on? So a lot of a few different things, right?
SPEAKER_02:If I look at go to market, we generally work with companies that have said we are interested in X market. If we run programs into those markets that are funded through governments, we can help them. Um, if they're international companies and want to grow into Australia, we work directly with them on developing their strategy, trying to get some initial traction and then scaling that out. Um the other side is their sales, sales processes. So that's something that we've briefly touched upon is you know, um, we can bring a horse to water, but we can't make a drink, right? And that's a challenge that we've often faced is we work with companies, we give them leads, we give them potential channel partners, but then their sales process falls short. They may not follow up, there may be no nurturing, uh, you name it. So one of the things that we work with a lot of companies on is helping them set out their sales process from first contact to close, creating that blueprint, figuring out each touch point, figuring out how to improve it, which tools to use, who's doing what? And that's something that, yeah, you can use in every market, but it's something that um we work with a lot of companies on on their go-to-market as well, as part of their go-to market.
SPEAKER_01:If you're an Australian SaaS company thinking about going international, is there a better path to take? Do you go to Singapore first? Do you go to Europe? Do you go to North America?
SPEAKER_02:Um, look, I don't necessarily always believe in a country approach. I just think go where your customers are, where your opportunity is, where you can compete. Um Asia or Asia is obviously very large and diverse. Um, but if I look at Southeast Asia, where a lot of the attention is going towards at the moment, there's a lot of potential there, but it's terribly difficult to crack those markets to actually achieve success in terms of revenues and profits. Um, so uh for every company it's a little bit different. And I'd say, yeah, just go go where your customers are and where you can compete. AI is a big topic at the moment.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. In every single conversation. Um every time you look online, AI and it's it's disruption, and uh, some are positive, some are not so much. But what what is your take on AI um and the role that it's playing into the go-to-market strategy for a lot of these SaaS companies?
SPEAKER_02:Um so I forgot there's a there's a law. Um what did I basically that says, you know, we tend to underestimate the uh overestimate the impact of new technologies in the short run and underestimate their impact in the long run. And that's something that I'm seeing play out with AI. Um at the moment, AI is really language models, and many would argue it's not actually AI, it's more machine learning. Um, there's been a lot of hype around it, and a lot of that, and and for good reason. I I use ChatGPT, I use perplexity, uh, but the more you use it, the more uh you also start to realize the uh hallucinations that come into play. Uh, the bottlenecks, how difficult it is to get a consistent answer out of them. Uh and when you talk to people in the industry, um, you learn, oh, actually, this whole idea of uh artificial intelligence, of generalized intelligence, we're very far away from that still. But those folks that do talk a lot about it and that that constantly warn you that you might lose your job as a recruiter or whatever it might be, um, they tend to have some skin in the game. They tend to have an incentive to share that as well. They tend to be the CEOs of AI companies, right? That is part of the marketing game. Um, unfortunately, we do see see real life consequences of that, of people firing their sales teams because, hey, I've got an automated N8N funnel running now that can basically replace my sales team. Uh, in practice, they find that's often not the case. So, yes, I I think there's some real good stuff happening and and some real useful AI tools, but I I think it's all a little bit overblown at the moment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was at a um presentation by Relevance AI. Oh, yeah, one of the the Aussie um success stories that's getting international at the moment. And um, one of their slides, it was it was showing the the Google searches for large language models and and AI. And I think up until July last year, it just went through the roof, and then all of a sudden it just dropped off and it's just sort of tinkered around the same level quite a bit. And I think it's that um that big momentum, just like you said, there's the the over-expectation to start with. Um yeah, so but but I yeah, I agree with you. I think there's um there's a lot of opportunity for impact, but I don't think it is going to be implemented as quickly as uh everyone thinks it can be. But I also think that we need to prepare for it. And if you're not thinking about that integration into your business, then you're risking falling behind. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So no, I agree.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. High market is a is a profit for um for purpose business. What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02:It's a great question. So it it basically means that we're um so we're we're owned by a family office, okay, and we do not um um send back any profits to the HQ. Every dollar profit that we make is donated to charity or to a good cause. Okay. So um the charities have been chosen by some of the people that we work with or the members of our co-working space, which we have as well. Uh, and that's ranged from mental health charities to uh charities supporting refugee women, uh, you name it. Um and they're also sometimes put back into the foundation that's run by the family office, uh, which they then distribute to, for instance, um universities and hospitals. So the whole idea behind behind Haymarket HQ is to help companies succeed. Yes, we obviously need to uh make money to pay for our salaries and and you know, to for our offices, uh, but we're not in it to just make a dollar. There's a real purpose behind it. And you know, the profits that we do make, we we send to a good cause. That's um that's a that's a good news story.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I guess so. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh and is is the family office in Singapore? No, Sydney-based.
SPEAKER_02:Sydney-based-based, third generation family-owned uh company called the Bana uh group. Uh they have real estate, they have businesses, uh, they have their own foundation, and they really wanted to support more entrepreneurs to capitalize on the opportunities, particularly in the Asia Pacific, where they felt like, hey, there's a lot of trade, but there's not a lot of trade between technology companies and these fast-growing regions, for instance, in Southeast Asia. And I wanted to play a part in that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, amazing. And for those that are listening that are thinking there's some exciting opportunities for emerging companies coming out of Asia. How can they learn about what is coming in the pipeline? How can they get involved and potentially contribute to the the growth of some of these companies? Is there visibility, is there promotion of these companies coming in?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So whenever we tend to work with companies as part of programs, we do individual support to companies as well, but a lot of our skill comes from working with companies as part of programs, where we work with 10 to 20 companies at a time, and we then take them on trade missions into Australia. And when they're here, our goal is to connect them to the local ecosystem, as we call it. You know, this can be investors, but more often it can be potential customers, partners, collaborators, whatever it might be, service providers. Um, so we actively go out and share that in a newsletter saying, hey, these are the companies we're working with. They're exploring Australia. They'd love to meet with X, Y, and Z. If you know someone, or if you fit that criteria, you fit that bill, we'd love to chat and we'd love to connect you with each other.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so yeah, follow us on on LinkedIn, I'd say. Yeah. Little plug. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, that's gonna be my question is if people do want to hear how do they connect with you on LinkedIn? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:LinkedIn and LinkedIn is good. Yeah, uh, it's probably the easiest channel to connect with me on. I should be posting more. I'll make sure to post about this.
SPEAKER_01:We all we all should.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, LinkedIn will be the best channel. Excellent. And um, I guess in terms of the the outlook for the the tech world, um, the SaaS world, the the next 12 months, have you got an uh an opinion? We've obviously been in a bit of a tech dip for the last 12, 24 months. Are you seeing um green shoots coming through? Um, what is your prediction for the next 12 months?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, if we look at if we look at some of the stats around, for instance, investment, that's picked up quite a bit. So it shows that there's more investor confidence, which to me is a good sign. You know, as more money becomes available, there's more ability for these companies to grow as well. Uh, when I talk to other folks in the industry, um, including recruiters and such, they also see a bit more growth happening at the moment. Um, what I think is making people or companies a little bit hesitant to invest at the moment is uh what's happening in the US, I guess global uncertainty. Um, that's a big one. And second is AI. AI, I think the worst is behind us. You know, I think a lot of companies were like, oh, what's happening? Um, you know, and that has impacted as well exits because comes in like, well, we'll, you know, uh Google wouldn't as wouldn't simply acquire more companies at the moment because they're like, well, AI may make you irrelevant in 12 months' time, or our cost to develop uh the same solution that you've developed is cheaper for us now with the use of AI. Um, but to come back to your question, in the next 12 to 24 months, I think it'll get better. I think the worst is behind us. Yeah, I can see that from investor confidence, I see that from increased activity.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I share that sentiment as well. Our business, which is we're only 18 months old, but we have picked up in the last six months for sure. Yeah. And um, the way I would describe it is um that everyone is just aware that the new business is uncertain. Yeah. Um, so there's a lot of uncertainty, and like the the only certain is uncertainty. And like we know that. So if you've got a stable business, you've got customers, um, then and you've survived till now, like actually, you know what? You need to keep moving forward. If you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards. And you're right, it's those innovative companies that are coming through that um, and and the acquisitions I think definitely slowed down. But um, yeah, I I shared the sentiment the worst is behind us. And um, yeah, hopefully that's uh that's a good thing for both of us moving forward. It's all up from here. Awesome. Duca, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show today. Likewise. Really appreciate your your time, your insights. And um yeah, thank you for for for coming. Thank you, James.
SPEAKER_02:Really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:Cheers, thank you.
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