ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Stephen Wools has built creative agencies, toured Jordan Peterson and Theo Von, opened one of Melbourne's most talked-about bars, signed the biggest hospitality lease in the city's history four weeks before lockdown, and lost a house and millions of dollars along the way. His advice on how to survive all of it: be a cockroach.
Stephen walks through how a floppy disk and a hungover all-nighter got him through his one and only year of uni, how a chance meeting at Big Brother auditions turned into a 20-year business partnership with Josh Lefers, and how "everything's for sale" became the concept behind Pawn & Co, right down to the grand piano someone bought off the DJ booth. Then comes the harder part: signing the lease on a 2,500 square metre venue in January 2020, watching the brewing business collapse under COVID, and rebuilding while banks called in their money.
He gets honest about what he'd change, what resilience actually costs, and the three life lessons he's learned the hard way: being ruthless about who you surround yourself with, learning to respect risk instead of running on pure optimism, and knowing when more stops being more.
Find Stephen
Stephen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-j-wools-b5240811/
Ballers Clubhouse: https://www.ballersclubhouse.com.au/
Good Times Tech: https://www.goodtimestech.com.au/
Pawn & Co: https://www.pawnandco.com.au/
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The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com
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Time Stamps
00:00 Cold open: the cockroach theory
00:23 Welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Stephen Wools
01:51 Growing up, uni, and the floppy disk story
04:20 From Big Dog Creative to touring Jordan Peterson and Theo Von
05:28 Meeting Josh Lefers and the TV shows that started it all
09:44 Learning to love rejection
13:42 Competitiveness, imposter syndrome, and outworking everyone
20:26 Building Pawn & Co and the story of the $5,000 piano
23:13 Launching East 9th Brewing
24:30 COVID hits: losing the brewing business, a house, and millions
30:28 Signing the Ballers Clubhouse lease weeks before lockdown, and building through it
40:26 Scaling Ballers, launching Good Times Tech, and the plan to go global
53:41 Building systems, working with AI, and staying frictionless for the customer
56:29 Life lesson 1: be careful who you surround yourself with
1:02:59 Life lesson 2: respecting risk instead of running on pure optimism
1:09:01 Life lesson 3: more is more, and knowing when enough is enough
1:22:24 Closing thoughts + outro
