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Kirstin Hunter has co-founded a super fund, run a startup accelerator, and now leads Australia's biggest crowdfunding platform. None of it was the plan.

She grew up in Tweed Heads folding junk mail for two cents a letterbox, trained to be a doctor, then pivoted through law and consulting before a friend told her the pro bono work she loved was just "the trinkets" propping up a job that made corporations richer. That conversation pushed her into Future Super, where a pitch her co-founders called "absurd" turned into one of Australia's first fossil-fuel-free super funds.

She's honest about what came next too: the moment she and her co-founders stopped wanting the same thing, and why leaving felt like leaving a marriage. From there she takes you through Techstars Australia, the funding data project that exposed how badly VCs back women and diverse founders, and how she landed the CEO seat at Birchal, almost by accident.

Stick around for the one Revolut stat that makes the case for democratised funding better than any pitch deck could.

Time Stamps

00:00 Cold open + welcome to Life After Launch

01:14 Introducing Kirstin Hunter

02:16 From junk mail in Tweed Heads to running a $20M student union at 23

09:16 Consulting, "the trinkets," and the leap to Future Super

15:48 Becoming a co-founder and building Australia's fossil-fuel-free super fund

20:39 The co-founder breakdown, and why she walked away

24:54 Techstars, the funding gap for diverse founders, and Funding the Balance

42:27 Landing at Birchal, and the case for crowdfunding

48:06 Closing thoughts + outro