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Episode SummaryEvery role in cybersecurity is changing fast, but most practitioners are still treating AI like a glorified search engine. In this solo episode of Secured, Cole Cornford shares his unfiltered take on three things on his mind right now: entrepreneurship in a tough market, the growing threat to SaaS product businesses from roll your own culture, and why the cyber industry needs a fundamentally different approach to AI.Cole makes the case that saying "hey Claude" is the least effective way to work with AI today, and that the real conversation has nothing to do with which model you pick. It is about how you interact with it, how you build a harness around it, and how you stop letting third party wrappers make all the decisions for you. He also shares early thinking on an AI course he is building for security professionals, covering AI fundamentals, using AI for security, and securing AI products.Along the way he tackles the rule of three as a framework for prioritising in a small business, why product moats are disappearing fast, and what qualities he is actually looking for when hiring graduates in a market where everyone is cutting them.Timestamps00:00 Trailer01:01 Chainguard ad01:28 Intro and today's three topics02:30 Entrepreneurship in a tough market04:30 The rule of three and how Cole runs his business07:00 Why SaaS product moats are disappearing10:00 Roll your own vs buying commercial security tools13:30 When rolling your own actually makes sense16:00 Cash flow warning for Australian business owners18:00 Why Cole is building an AI course for security professionals21:00 Models vs harnesses and why most people get this wrong24:00 How the cyber industry needs to change its approach to AI27:00 What Cole looks for when hiring graduates right now30:00 Systems thinking, humanities and the skills that still matter33:00 Grandma's pot and questioning everything you think you know35:00 Closing thoughts🐙 Secured is grateful to be sponsored and supported by Chainguard.Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. Get hardened, secure, production-ready builds so your team can ship faster, stay compliant, and reduce risk. Download your free CVE Reduction Assessment at https://dayone.fm/chainguardSecured is part of Day One.Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often. To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new First Cheque episodes and upcoming shows.Mentioned in this episode:Call for FeedbackThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrpSpotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

From policing the streets of Sydney’s King’s Cross to founding one of the world's first enterprise AI companies, Dr. Catriona Wallace has navigated a career arc that defies convention. As one of the few women globally to list an AI company on the ASX, she scaled Flamingo AI to New York and back, all while raising five children and operating on a frontier that barely had a name. But behind the milestone of a $20M capital raise and the adrenaline of the public markets lay a deeper story of personal cost, identity, and the "sacred wounds" that fuel high-performance leadership.In this deep-dive episode of Perspective X, Dr. Cat shares her unfiltered story of transition: from the corruption and shadow-side of law enforcement to the high-pressure world of venture capital, and eventually, to the jungles of Peru. We explore the "hard thing about hard things," the brutal reality of having your product commoditised by tech giants, and why she chose to sit with ayahuasca the same day she exited her company.This isn't just a talk about technology; it’s a masterclass in the human operating system. We dive into why AI poses a 1-in-10 existential risk, the intersection of ancient ritual and modern innovation, and why Dr. Cat believes the next generation of leaders must undergo a "rapid transformation" of consciousness to ensure humanity isn't left behind by the machines we’ve built.Sponsors:Perspective X is supported by our wonderful sponsors:Deel:Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders.It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast.Visit https://www.deel.com/dayonePerspective X is part of Day One.Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often. To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows.Mentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Script 1Deel x PX_Script 2

Tap, beep, done. Australia’s payment experience is one of the world’s most convenient, but also one of the most expensive. Small businesses lose thousands a month in card and scheme fees, while everyday Australians pay hundreds each year just to access their own money.In this episode of Pick My Brain, Gaurav Rana, co-founder of GANI Pay, joins Alan Jones to pitch his mobile-first payment platform designed to bypass the legacy card system entirely. GANI Pay uses NPP, PayID, and PayTo to enable instant, secure QR payments, with flat monthly fees for merchants and cash-back rewards for consumers.Alan and Gaurav dig into the economics of “tap and go,” how to convince both merchants and customers to switch, and why regulatory trust is just as important as slick tech in fintech. They also explore GANI Pay’s go-to-market focus on high-volume, low-ticket retailers, and what it takes to turn a payment product into a movement.If you’re building in fintech, payments, or tackling an entrenched incumbent, this is a masterclass in pitching, positioning, and finding your wedge.Time Stamp01:40 – What is GaniPay? Mobile-first QR payments without the card fees03:00 – Gaurav’s early ambitions: from science to entrepreneurship04:15 – The problem: why tap payments quietly cost Australians billions06:10 – How GaniPay works: bypassing Visa/Mastercard with NPP & PayTo08:20 – Merchants’ biggest question: will customers adopt it?09:50 – Building trust: compliance, security, and banking partnerships12:15 – Go-to-market: targeting high-volume, sub-$100 transactions14:30 – Competing with Afterpay & co: different problem, different value15:55 – Alan on finding the most promising merchant verticals17:40 – Fundraising plans: seeking $600k to scale tech & marketing18:35 – How to become an “investable” fintech in 60 days20:45 – Movement vs product: can GaniPay spark a payments revolution?Resources🙋🏻♂️ Gaurav Rana – https://www.linkedin.com/in/gauravrana841/💰 GaniPay – https://ganipay.com.au/Sponsors:Pick My Brain is supported by our wonderful sponsors:Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders.It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast.Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone___Galah Cyber offers Application Security Assessment Get a clear, ten-minute snapshot of your AppSec maturity across the five core principles. Fast, practical insights you can act on straight away at https://www.galahcyber.com.au/assessThe Day One NetworkPick My Brain is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new and upcoming shows. The only content we create is content that will help Australian founders.Mentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Script 1Deel x PX_Script 2

Episode SummaryAnna Zhou and Vivian Shen, the co-founders of Toastie, join Georgie Healy for one of the warmest and most personal conversations the show has had. Two software engineers at Google by day, they have quietly built one of the most thoughtful health tracking apps in the world by night, all without spending a single dollar on marketing.Toastie was born from a problem they were both living. Anna was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and handed a few photocopied sheets to figure out the rest of her life from. Viv has been managing PCOS for years, experimenting with medications and diets on her own. They realised the tools available simply were not built for people like them, so they built one themselves. Today Toastie helps users track symptoms, food, body signals, lab reports and scans, surfacing the patterns and irregularities that would otherwise go unnoticed.In this episode they unpack why almost one in two Australians live with a chronic illness but no one talks about it, why slapping AI on everything is the wrong instinct and how they decide which features actually need it, and the cold LinkedIn email that landed them their first global partnership before they even had a product. They also share why ChatGPT and Gemini are not enough when the stakes are this high, what their users actually write to them in the feedback form, and the story of the user who quietly security audited their app and was so impressed they wrote in to tell them.Plus the early hackathon they won by faking the backend in real time, why they call themselves boomers when it comes to social media, the worst startup advice they have ever received, and a special offer just for In The Blink of AI listeners.🎁 Use promo code ITBOA2026 to get a 90 day free trial of Toastie🍞 Find your Toastie personality: https://toastie.au/quizTime Stamps00:00 Intro02:20 AI Hacks and Life at Google Sydney07:00 How They Met and Their Hackathon Wins10:51 What is Toastie and Why It Matters13:50 The Personal Stories Behind the Product16:23 How They Use AI (And Where They Don't)17:37 The Cold Email That Landed a Global Partnership20:00 Why General AI Models Aren't Enough23:25 Building, Prioritising and the Competition25:13 Why They Refuse to Call Themselves an AI Company27:57 Trust, Security and User Feedback30:00 Going Viral With Zero Marketing Spend33:33 Handling AI Hate Online35:43 Rapid Fire and What's Next38:45 Special Offer for ListenersIn the Blink of AI is made possible by our wonderful partnersDeelFounders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders.It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast.Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone✨ Connect with Georgie HealyWeekly Substack: https://georgiehealy.substack.com/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginahealy/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georginahealytech/The Day One NetworkIn The Blink of AI is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.Sign up to get your weekly insights into the up-and-coming AI startups: https://dayone.fm/newsletterMentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Post Intro

Episode SummaryNoga Edelstein is the lead of the Equity Clear initiative, a not-for-profit effort to get Australian investors tracking pipeline diversity data with a common standard. She's also a former General Counsel at Yahoo, a multi-time founder, and has had her fingerprints across the Australian startup ecosystem for over a decade.In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine unpack why pre-seed funding to women is at its lowest level ever and how Equity Clear is building the data infrastructure to finally see where diverse founders are falling out of the pipeline. Noga shares what the UK's five-year head start has revealed, including that angel groups with at least 15% women invest in 10X the number of women-led companies, and why the mere act of tracking your own pipeline drives better outcomes.You'll also hear how a broken website form accidentally proved that women disproportionately use cold inbound to reach investors, why male founders and LPs should be asking their investors about diversity tracking, and what sport can teach us about leveling the playing field through systemic tweaks like funded childcare for founders. Noga closes with her Big Cojones moment: quitting her General Counsel role at Yahoo with a newborn to go all in on a startup.Time Stamps00:00 Intro02:27 – Noga's first investment: dollar-mite savings accounts in primary school10:02 – What is Equity Clear and why pipeline data is the missing piece14:40 – Why closing the gender gap matters now: productivity, economics, and AI bias19:27 – Pre-seed funding to women is at its lowest ever despite lower barriers to building24:44 – Why collecting diversity data feels hard but isn't28:32 – Lessons from the UK: what five years of tracking has revealed32:02 – Maxine's accidental experiment: when a broken form hid all the women founders37:39 – How male founders and LPs can push for change by asking simple questions48:16 – Why funds are missing a trick on sourcing diverse founders51:32 – Breaking the archetype: leveling the playing field with systemic tweaks57:15 – Big Cojones moment: quitting law with a newborn to start a companyFirst Cheque is part of Day One.Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often. To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new First Cheque episodes and upcoming shows.Mentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Script 2Deel x PX_Script 1This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrpSpotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

"Code is getting cheaper. Which means taste is getting more expensive."That one idea from Andrew Hogan reframes everything people think they know about competing in AI right now. Andrew, Head of Insights at Figma, joins Georgie to make the case that features are no longer a moat, and that the companies quietly investing in how their product feels are the ones building something that's actually hard to copy.In this episode they get into why 56% of non-designers are already doing design work, why the job title "designer" isn't going anywhere, and why anyone who's still treating design as a finish-line coat of paint is going to get lapped. They also unpack what agent management platforms actually need to get right, why design matters even more when kids are the users, and what GeoCities taught us about creative ownership that most product teams have completely forgotten.Plus: the prompting-together technique that turns prototyping into a team sport, why "no tech at all" is unnecessarily painful for parents, Andrew's verdict on Australian coffee, and why the golden era of the side project might be the most important shift nobody's naming loudly enough.✨ Connect with Georgie HealyWeekly Substack: https://georgiehealy.substack.com/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginahealy/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georginahealytech/The Day One NetworkIn The Blink of AI is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.Sign up to get your weekly insights into the up-and-coming AI startups: https://dayone.fm/newsletterMentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Post Intro

Episode SummaryVibe coding is here and most organisations are nowhere near ready for what it means for security. In this episode of Secured, Cole Cornford sits down with Patrick Collins and Simon Harloff, founders of Dam Secure, to unpack how AI is reshaping software development and why the old AppSec playbook is not keeping up.They cover the shift from artisanal to factory model engineering, why skills and agents.md files are less reliable than people think, and why the SaaSpocalypse narrative is mostly a distraction from the work that actually matters. Patrick and Simon also walk through how Dam Secure enforces organisational security rules at plan time, before a single line of AI generated code gets written.Timestamps00:00 Trailer01:01 Chainguard ad01:28 Meet Patrick Collins and Simon Harloff from Dam Secure03:00 Why existing AppSec tooling never worked for developers05:30 The artisanal vs factory model of software development08:30 Hacker News, polarisation and the AI sentiment shift11:00 Agile, standups and processes that no longer make sense14:00 Bigger PRs, higher velocity and workflows without an IDE17:00 Skills, agents.md and the limits of deterministic guardrails20:00 The AppSec to developer ratio problem23:00 The SaaSpocalypse and why rebuilding tools is a side quest27:00 React, digital certificates and security through business incentives30:00 How Dam Secure works: secure spec and plan time enforcement34:00 Vibe coders, Lovable and the risk beyond professional developers36:00 Where to find Dam Secure and closing remarks🐙 Secured is grateful to be sponsored and supported by Chainguard.Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. Get hardened, secure, production-ready builds so your team can ship faster, stay compliant, and reduce risk. Download your free CVE Reduction Assessment at https://dayone.fm/chainguardSecured is part of Day One.Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often. To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new First Cheque episodes and upcoming shows.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrpSpotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/surveyFrom policing the streets of Sydney’s King’s Cross to founding one of the world's first enterprise AI companies, Dr. Catriona Wallace has navigated a career arc that defies convention. As one of the few women globally to list an AI company on the ASX, she scaled Flamingo AI to New York and back, all while raising five children and operating on a frontier that barely had a name. But behind the milestone of a $20M capital raise and the adrenaline of the public markets lay a deeper story of personal cost, identity, and the "sacred wounds" that fuel high-performance leadership.In this deep-dive episode of Perspective X, Dr. Cat shares her unfiltered story of transition: from the corruption and shadow-side of law enforcement to the high-pressure world of venture capital, and eventually, to the jungles of Peru. We explore the "hard thing about hard things," the brutal reality of having your product commoditised by tech giants, and why she chose to sit with ayahuasca the same day she exited her company.This isn't just a talk about technology; it’s a masterclass in the human operating system. We dive into why AI poses a 1-in-10 existential risk, the intersection of ancient ritual and modern innovation, and why Dr. Cat believes the next generation of leaders must undergo a "rapid transformation" of consciousness to ensure humanity isn't left behind by the machines we’ve built.Mentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Script 1Deel x PX_Script 2

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/surveyJustin Wastnage is the founder and CEO of Vloggi, a platform that transforms everyday mobile phone footage into trusted, structured, legally owned video assets for businesses and enterprises. What started as a tool for tourism boards to crowdsource location content has evolved, through COVID, multiple pivots, and years of customer-funded development, into an infrastructure layer that verifies, structures and processes video for some of the world's most compliance-heavy industries.In this episode, Justin joins Alan to talk honestly about the challenges of pitching a business that investors think they already know. Vloggi has worked with Major League Baseball, Netflix, the NSW Government, Google Ads and RFK's presidential campaign, yet raising in Australia remains stubbornly difficult. Alan digs into why that is and what Justin can do about it, from repositioning the pitch, to rebranding, to putting someone else in the room.If you're a founder who has pivoted hard but can't shake what investors remember about your old story, this one is for you.00:00 - Intro02:03 – Meet Justin Wastnage and the origins of Vloggi04:57 – What Vloggi does: video as content, data and evidence07:11 – What changed with synthetic AI video and why it matters now09:00 – The pivot story: from tourism boards to enterprise compliance12:35 – Bootstrapping and the team behind Vloggi13:03 – The current raise: $800k to bring the enterprise product to market17:03 – How Vloggi verifies that uploaded video is authentic, not AI-generated19:33 – Commercial model: per project vs ongoing enterprise licensing22:31 – Why Vloggi wants to be infrastructure, not a consumer brand24:48 – Alan's challenge: how to reposition when investors think they know your old story29:08 – Should you rebrand? The case for and against32:26 – Pitch deck strategy: teaser first or full deck upfront?35:23 – Alan pitches Vloggi back to Justin the way he'd do it38:51 – The airline use case and how to open with one vertical then go broadSponsors:Pick My Brain is supported by our wonderful sponsors:Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders.It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast.Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone___Galah Cyber offers Application Security Assessment Get a clear, ten-minute snapshot of your AppSec maturity across the five core principles. Fast, practical insights you can act on straight away at https://www.galahcyber.com.au/assessSponsors:Pick My Brain is supported by our wonderful sponsors:Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders.It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast.Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone___Galah Cyber offers Application Security Assessment Get a clear, ten-minute snapshot of your AppSec maturity across the five core principles. Fast, practical insights you can act on straight away at https://www.galahcyber.com.au/assessMentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Script 2Deel x PX_Script 1

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey"Shit at the speed of light is still shit."That one line from Pip captures the entire philosophy behind Springboards, the AI company he co-founded with Amy and Kieran that is quietly pushing back against what the rest of the industry is doing. The three of them join Georgie Healy for one of the most thought-provoking conversations the show has had about what AI is quietly doing to creativity, and what it takes to build a model that breaks the mould.Pip and Amy never planned to start an AI company. Both worked in advertising and got laid off within three weeks of each other, which led them to accidentally build the first version of Springboards themselves to solve a problem they kept running into: existing AI tools were not helping them do creative work better, they were making everyone's creative work look the same. Kieran joined as their technical co-founder and together they have now released Flint, a divergence model designed to break the AI hive mind.In this episode they unpack why 69 out of 70 language models will tell you that time is a river, why mainstream AI has converged into one gray mush of sameness, and why the scariest part of this might be that most people will not even notice. They also get into how they built Flint to score 7.5 on novelty bench when the frontier models score ones and twos, why the smallest possible model was always the goal, and why they deliberately avoid making the tool feel too polished.Plus why humans are evolutionarily lazy and what that means for our brains in the AI era, the unexpected analogy about sourdough and alcohol that changes how you think about creativity, and the honest reflection from all three founders on being the self-loathing AI company in a space full of hype.00:00 — Intro02:22 — Introducing Flint and the convergence problem in AI models04:50 — Why Springboards is uniquely positioned to solve creative AI07:30 — What entropy actually means in language models09:44 — Real examples: random cars, pizza toppings, and where to holiday12:36 — Why this matters for the advertising industry (and everyone else)15:29 — Inside Flint: how to fine-tune a model for divergence18:38 — Doubling the score on Novelty Bench (and what that even means)23:35 — Try Flint yourself: who it's for and how to access it26:10 — Cognitive atrophy, taste, and keeping humans in the creative loop35:04 — Choosing a tech provider as an early-stage AI startup38:20 — What actually matters for founders in the sasspocalypse era41:12 — Rapid fire: copyright, cover shoots, Eumundi markets, and self-loathing AI✨ Connect with Georgie HealyWeekly Substack: https://georgiehealy.substack.com/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginahealy/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georginahealytech/The Day One NetworkIn The Blink of AI is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.Sign up to get your weekly insights into the up-and-coming AI startups: https://dayone.fm/newsletter