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Born in Romania, Monica moved to Australia in two thousand and ten. Motivated by a need to mitigate the threat of climate change, and seeing the mass adoption of bicycles in parts of Europe, Monica is aiming to do more than build a successful business. With the lofty ambition of reshaping the way we think about transport in Australia, Monica has been working hundred hour plus weeks to build BYKKO as a proof of concept, with the hopes that an electric bike sharing model could be adopted by governments and used as part of integrated public transport systems. But before we dig into the details of how Monica believes electric bike sharing can change transport in Australia, first we need to go back to day one, and learn about the research Monica undertook which ultimately led her to believe that, as she says, “bikes are the future”.

Today I’d like to share with you the story of Naomi Findlay. Naomi is a remarkably hard-working woman with a ridiculous amount of active projects, all of which aim to position her as Australia's queen of property renovation and home styling. She has a digital video series, Renovie, hosted on Youtube with nearly two hundred episodes and approaching two thousand subscribers. She has a blog and hosts a weekly podcast, Reno Radio. She has appeared on TV shows including Channel 9's Location Lifestyle Living and Channel 10's The Home Team. She created an app, Rapid Reno Mate, designed to make home renovation a breeze. She has designed and runs courses and workshops to assist people in many facets of renovating, styling and selling their home. And this is just the tip of the iceberg! The list goes on and on.Perhaps even more remarkable is that creating beautiful spaces was not the first career path Naomi chose for herself. In fact, Naomi is Dr Naomi Findlay PhD, and in a previous life worked for around 15 years in radiation oncology in Australia and around the world. To learn why Dr Findlay would completely overhaul her career in pursuit of a new life, first, we need to go back to day one, and hear the story of how two conversations with two mentor figures spaced a decade apart would end up sending Naomi down two very different paths.

Meet Melanie Mury from IMBY (In My Backyard). IMBY operates in the proptech space (Property Technology) and is working to consolidate the development application process or at least make it easier to navigate. Melanie started IMBY with her partner in life and business, Chris Mury. This isn't just a story about a business venture, this is a life story, one that started and changed forever when Melanie was 18 years old and decided to head overseas.Let's go back to day one where this story begins.

Today you’re going to hear the story of Linda Bergskas and Visionise. Linda started Visionise, a full-service fashion branding service after she sold her own international fashion brand in search of a more balanced lifestyle. With such a successful career and a large network within the industry, Linda found herself constantly being asked for her expertise to help start and grow fashion brands.

In this episode guest host Andy Jones goes on a walking tour with Becky Kiil, founder of Newcastle Afoot, a top rated walking tour and cultural experiences business. On top of her already hectic work life, Becky is also volunteering her time as festival coordinator for Big Picture Fest Newcastle, a project which received over $120,000 in grant money to bring local and international mural artists to the city in October 2020. In this conversation Becky discusses the challenges of managing a work-life balance, and her love for the city which she now calls home.

This special episode of Welcome to Day One features James MacDonald from JM Recruitment. A Newcastle based recruitment business focused solely on the Tech sector. James believes that a good recruiter should now his patch intimately. James does just that through his meetup groups and podcast called Newy Tech People. Listen to James speak about how his business has been impacted and how he is taking this time to put himself and his business in a postion to really hit the ground running when we return to business as usual.

Tyler Regan started his business by accident, but what a ride it has been. After at the request of his teacher Tyler built a product that digitised his school’s paper based rewards system. But after his school didn’t want it, like any good entrepreneur Tyler saw an opportunity. Tyler rebuilt the product from the ground up and took it to market, approaching other schools in the region and has since brought on board a number of beta-customers helping to refine the product.Tyler is still in the early stages of his business, but his positive attitude and focus on creating a great product have put him in a great position, even winning an award in the Hunter Young Business Minds Awards.

Hospitality has been hit hard, lots of people have lost their jobs. Your Food Collective are doing what they can to give locals employment and getting food to those that need it. I give Cara from Your Food Collective a call in this episode to hear what they've been up to.

Erin Wilson discovered her passion while she was still in university. However, it wasn’t exactly what she had planned. Erin studied Exercise and Sports Science at University and after finishing her degree Erin didn’t want to take the obvious career route and instead wanted to share her passion with those who were looking to make a positive change in their lives.‘At the end of my Exercise Science degree, I was just like, "Nope." And I was like, "This isn't what I wanted to do. This isn't where I want to go." I had a little crisis. And then I found this job working for Vision Personal Training in Gladesville.’ -Erin WilsonErin became a personal trainer and with a lot of hard work she was making a difference, but her passion began to turn into a grind and the numbers game of getting bums on seats, not being able to focus on achieving a quality outcome for her clients was beginning to take a toll. After needing to step away for a while, Erin returned and started her own gym, Urban Base Fitness, at 25 years old. Taking everything she had learnt she was able to build the right environment and focus on the outcomes that her clients wanted.

Daniel started his business not long before the 2008 financial crisis and his business grew through that period. So, Daniel is feeling pretty confident he'll be able to do the same through the challenges to come and it's all thanks to a positive attitude.https://www.psyborg.com.au/

CompEAT are doing what they can to help Dietitians and those in their industry affected by our current challenges.Daniel & Alicia have released the dietitian side of the CompEAT app to help dietitians connect with their clients in these difficult times.CompEAT are organising a virtual conference for athletes with a number of different topics and speakers. One topic will be helping athlete's with resilience and finding their identity and purpose during these times.Learn more about the Virtual conference here -> https://conference.compeatnutrition.com

Taj Pabari started his first business when he was only 11 years old. A tech blog for kids amassing an audience of 50,000 views per day. After that business was sold, Taj started the company he is still building today, Fiftysix Creations. Taj launched Fiftysix creations amongst a mediastorm, being featured everywhere from National Geographic to Sunrise with Kochie.“Within six months we were on the front page of pretty much all media outlets from News Corp, to National Geographic, to ABC, 60 Minutes did a half an hour profile of us during prime time on a Sunday night with Liz Hayes, Koch put us on Sunrise, we were on the Today Show with Karl. We literally had every media outlet in Australia jump on, and we sold a lot of devices.” -Taj Pabari

Do you have a really cool idea for a business? What’s stopping you from giving it a shot?Starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur while we’re young is an incredible opportunity. A rare time in our lives when we can give stuff a go while we have the flexibility and room to fail fast and learn.“It’s ok to fail, take what you’ve learned and then try again. Because failing while you’re young is the best time to do it.”-Cheryl Royle, Entrepreneurship Facilitator at Hunter Futurepreneurs.Hosted by Adam Spencer, the Youngpreneur Podcast shares the experiences of other young people just like you, who took a shot and built incredible businesses.Maybe they aren’t millionaires yet, but entrepreneurship isn’t just about Startups, Scaleups, Seed Rounds and Big Exits.It’s about learning new skills that you can’t learn anywhere else, it’s about creating an opportunity for yourself and it’s about having a go and taking control of your future.The Youngpreneur Podcast is brought to you by Hunter Futurepreneurs.The Hunter Futurepreneurs program is an initiative of the Commonwealth government and free to eligible participants. The program has been designed to inspire, educate, mentor and connect future entrepreneurs to start or build a sustainable business.

Today I’d like to share with you the story of Your Food Collective. Your Food Collective is serving over 1400 people since they opening in 2017 at an 80% customer retention rate with a very good average order value. They have hubs all over Newcastle where you can collect your orders and catch up with your local champion and they’ve recently entered the Sydney market too.Your Food Collective is growing and bringing truly fresh food to everyone. Now, let’s go back to day one, where this story begins…

Today you’re going to hear the story of Startmate featuring the head of operations at Startmate, Michael Batko.Startmate is the leading tech accelerator in Australia and they take 10 to 15 companies and new stage founders in each cohort and help them from three to four months to get them to the next stage of their business.They look for just the most ambitious founders and then work with that talent. Startmate doesn’t necessarily specialise in a certain area or industry. Startmate just focuses on the most ambitious founders and work with them to create immense value.Let’s go back to day one, to a pub in Surry Hills where this story begins…

Today you’re going to hear the story of Slingshot featuring Trent Bagnall and Craig Lambert.Today slingshot is Australia’s number 1 corporate accelerator. Trent told me that Slingshot is really invested in supporting regional and have a strong focus on supporting really early-stage startups. They’ve done 20 investments within the Hunter Valley alone at the time of recording. Which is as he told me, probably more than any other investor in the region, let alone accelerator.Slingshot has a strong pedigree, they’ve been around about the same time as Startmate, 6 to 8 years. Slingshot is here to stay for the long term.With that in mind, let’s find out where Slingshot comes from and how they got started, starting with Trent studying at university. Let’s go back to day one, where this story begins…

Today you’re going to hear from Alan Jones - The Nice One.Alan Jones is a startup entrepreneur, a mentor to other startup founders, and an angel investor who is building a venture fund.Let's meet Alan Jones.

Today you’re going to hear the story of Startup Muster through its founder Murray Hurps.Startup Muster is a report that produces the most comprehensive data on the Australian startup ecosystem with the goal of measuring and publishing the progress, challenges, and opportunities within the startup ecosystem. Startup Muster is important because the startup world here in Australia is in no sense of the word booming. But it could be, and Startup Muster aims to make the data available for us to course-correct our ship. All hands on deck, let’s go back to day one where this story begins…https://welcometodayone.com/startup-muster

Today you’re going to hear the story of Chantal Abouchar and The Studio.The Studio is a media technology incubator. The Studio is Australia's first media technologies incubator. It’s located in the Sydney Startup Hub, and their mission is to help startups be successful.We’ll be learning how The Studio came to be, what Chantal went through in order to make it happen and where it’s going in the future, but for now, let’s go back to day one where this story begins…

Today you’re going to hear the story of Alicia, Daniel and CompEAT Nutrition. The concept of CompEAT first planted itself in Daniel & Alicia’s mind in 2016. Since then they’ve bootstrapped it themselves for quite some time and invested a lot of themselves into bringing this amazing company into existence, they eventually went through the ICON Slingshot program at the Newcastle University’s Integrated Innovation Network and all while raising a young family.Daniel & Alicia are trying to fix a real problem and it’s a two-sided problem. CompEAT Nutrition are well on their way to solving the problem with their first product to market.300 active users and they’ve been very successful in the last 12 months in proving their assumptions around scalability. We’ll cover all of that and more, but for now, let’s go back to day one where this story begins…https://welcometodayone.com/compeat