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Sep 29, 2026
CHEQUE CHECK 01 - Rohan Workman, Tall Order Ventures
CHEQUE CHECK 01 - Rohan Workman, Tall Order Ventures
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30:40
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Transcript
0:00
[upbeat music] Welcome to Check Check, a weekly conversation with the investors backing tech founders across Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.
0:16
I'm Gaz Williams, founder of Group Group and curator of Seeds, where the Check Check podcast is published.
0:22
Check Check is focused on tech investment, care of some solid investment theses, which we unpack with sharp and concise convos.
0:29
For this episode, I'm joined by Rohan Workman, co-founder and general partner of Tall Order, the firm you knew as Scalata until a few weeks ago.
0:38
Uh, we got into why they rebranded, why they paused new investments for most of the year to rebuild the firm around AI, and what turns their heads for their Fund III.
0:48
And if there's a Claude-made pitch deck sitting in your drafts as a founder, uh, you might wanna stick around. I'm Gaz Williams, thanks for joining. Here's my chat with Rohan. So Rohan, um, welcome.
1:00
Thank you for joining me today, not, not as, uh, the, the previous entity, but as Tall Order, um, newly rebranded. I think we're about a week after announcement.
1:11
So congratulations, well done, and, um, thank you for joining me for the Check Check podcast. Gaz, thank you for having me.
1:16
It's a pleasure to be on the show and, um, yeah, it's been a, a big week or two, so it's, it's nice to be able to kinda come out and have all that done, but it's, it's really lovely to be here.
1:24
I've been, uh, it, it's funny 'cause we, we've been in each other's orbit quite a bit, um, but largely socially catching up and, um, and not so much on the, that we've been on events together or that I've had the chance to interview you.
1:35
So I, I think I, I was looking to do it imminently, um, but then I, um, was certainly motivated once a, once a rebrand came into effect.
1:44
And I, I found it really interesting because I found that you had built, um, a significant amount of brand equity with Scalata, um, based on, um, obviously the sheer number of deployments, um, in recent years, et cetera, and, and building up that brand profile, um, from your, um, beginnings after leaving Melbourne Uni.
2:04
So maybe c- maybe if I can start there with the rebrand, I, I'd be really interested to know the, um, the ethos and the inspiration behind moving in this direction. Yeah, absolutely.
2:13
Yeah, it's a fair question, and I think any time you do a rebrand, you've really gotta ask yourself, like, what's the, the negative of that? And there was...
2:19
You know, we did have questions from people around the brand equity and Scalata, so happy to talk openly about it. There were probably three reasons for it. Um, the first is that
2:30
you might recall when we started Scalata years and years ago, it was a very fixed kinda structure, like an accelerator program-type format, and we stopped doing that in twenty twenty-one and became a, you know, more kinda traditional venture capital firm in terms of the way that we operate and the investments that we would make.
2:45
Um, but even though we'd stopped doing that five years ago, there were some in the market that still had that association with us, and so we wanted to put that to bed once and, once and for all.
2:54
The second reason was that, uh, we did, um, a, in a, previously we had a broad range of shareholders, and we undertook a, a quasi management buyout in the middle of the year where Maxine and I took on the ownership of the, of the firm as well as the management.
3:09
And so it seemed like if there was going to be, um, and a time to rebrand, you know, it made sense to do it relatively soon after that point in time.
3:18
And then the third is also we've kind of, we're not afraid to reinvent ourselves, and we've done that a few times at Scalata initially and now at Tall Order. Mm-hmm.
3:26
And the more recent reinvention has been around some of the kind of internal ops that we're building and the other bits and pieces that we're doing around the investments that we're making.
3:34
And so we thought it was, um, an opportune time to do that.
3:38
And although there was a bit of brand equity with Scalata, we hope that'll translate because we still have the Scalata portfolio companies under the Tall Order banner and, um, and obviously there's more of a, a network that we have now that hopefully will, will kinda recognize the name sooner rather than later.
3:54
Yeah, that's awesome.
3:54
I, I mean, I, uh, from my personal vantage point, I, uh, had the fortune to have a coffee with you recently and you were explaining, uh, from the ops side and how that was sort of evolving and moving, um, obviously with, you know, proliferation of AI of, of course.
4:09
Um, but then I got to see it articulated, I guess, in the, um, the statements communicated, um, very wide and publicly, um, and it piqued my interest in terms of, uh, having a discussion about how you power the business.
4:21
But maybe, um, sitting on, first of all, name, um, specifically, so why, why Tall Order? What is the- Yeah...
4:29
the, the context and the nuance for now, um, in your mind as the, as a leader from, from the, um, you know, from where it's come to be?
4:37
Yeah, it's a good, um, it's a good one, uh, question, I suppose, 'cause part of it is, you know, I think people don't really like to admit this, but there's also, you know, part of it is a process of elimination.
4:46
There are a lot of names for venture capital firms that are already- Of course... taken.
4:49
Um- [chuckles] And secondly, we had a few different names that we liked that we kind of circulated amongst the group in the team, and Tall Order was the one that was, um, the favorite.
5:00
And when we looked into it, I think, I think previously I had thought Tall Order had somewhat of a negative connotation, but I actually think it's really quite relevant to founders.
5:08
A tall order is a difficult thing to do. It's a very hard task to accomplish. Some would say Herculean, but it's possible. Mm-hmm.
5:15
And I think whenever a founder starts a company, the odds are stacked against you, as we all know, and yet in spite of that, people go on to start companies, and nothing worthwhile doing, you know, is easy.
5:26
And once you start a company, you've gotta keep going if you're gonna be successful. Uh, and that's a really, really difficult, you know, journey for founders to go on.
5:34
It takes a toll, and I think people talk about it, but they don't really understand it unless they've done that.
5:39
So part of the, the rationale for Tall Order was that we wanted to attract the founders that are attracted to that challenge. They're not repelled by it, and we thought it was a good, good message.
5:48
And ultimately, the brand of Tall Order will be built around the investments that we make, the people that we hire, the experience that people have with us, even if they don't get funding, um, because most people who apply for funding won't get it.
6:00
So I think, you know, there's a lot of things there that, um, we thought would resonate with the market, and so far the, the responses have been really, really positive. So that's been, that's been good.
6:09
It's really great. I, um, I know you've been on the record in the past, uh, if I can remember right, it was a Stripe event- Ah... might've been in January. It might've- Yeah... been in 2024 potentially.
6:22
I think you're on the record as- Your memory is extraordinary... 'cause I remember it.
6:26
It was one of the first events of the year i- in Melbourne in, in particular, uh, you know, 'cause I was so involved in the events, um, stream there, so taking note of everything.
6:34
Well, and, and did take note of, of course, that, um, you, you know, you, you were sporadic in your public appearances op- uh, as opposed to some others, but you were deploying, um, extensively.
6:44
But you did put on the record around the, um, y- interested in boring businesses, um, so to speak, and, and certainly interested in that from a, um, investment thesis perspective.
6:56
From, from here, with the, I guess even from the naming of the Tall Order, uh, I guess the question sits with, there's obviously the challenge for founders to, um,
7:08
persevere and build towards sort of venture scale, um, and then venture scale outcomes. Does, does... Is there some ironic parallels as well with the, [lip smacks]
7:17
you know, the, the, the changing era, um, with AI, et cetera, where that, that added element of overcoming, um, these obstacles, as in the founder is able to build in, um, an era where AI is incredibly fuzzy and opaque in terms of how to use it effectively.
7:35
Does that add into it? I think so. Um, I think, you know, as long as kind of venture capital's existed, you know, and founders have tried to start companies, it's, it's always been difficult to start a company.
7:49
Um, and things change. Like you think about
7:52
when, you know, back in the 2000s, early 2000s, and SEEK, which is obviously a well-known Australian startup, um, well, now it's a large corporation, they started, they had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars getting servers on-prem, uh, and now you can get AWS or, you know, similar to, to...
8:11
And those costs have come down. So a lot of the costs have come down to start a company over the last however long, and especially now more recently with AI and coding.
8:19
But that also increases the amount of people starting companies and opening up the pool and also the, the competition. So I think, you know, it's never been easier to start a company.
8:28
You either needed capital or, or even if you did have capital, there was competition. But there's probably more competition than ever before right now, and so it is difficult, and you really... No one...
8:38
If you ever read any of the books from any of the successful companies, there's God knows how many chapters about how they almost hit the wall and failed time and time again, and every company that's been successful has had to persevere through some really difficult times.
8:51
Um, and I don't think that changes regardless of the era that you're in. And so I think it is still just as relevant now as it was previously.
8:57
But, but, you know, certainly I think speaks to, to founders that are trying to build something worthwhile. Yeah, of course.
9:03
Um, uh, maybe a question on the, uh, I guess the character or characteristics of, um, both founder and business.
9:10
So I guess it's a two-parter where I'll lean in a bit more on the specific investment thesis for Tall Order upcoming.
9:17
But, uh, you, you personally, what, what constitutes, I guess a, um, you know, something of substance if you're getting sort of a first look, um, at a company, get to, get to know them, get to know that founder.
9:30
What, what characteristics, um, jump out at you initially, um, and particularly impress you, I guess, after that in terms of continuing that conversation?
9:40
I, I think the first thing would just be the domain expertise that the founder has, which even if they're really young, and we've invested in some really young founders historically, and I'm sure we will.
9:49
There's actually one we're looking at at the moment where the founders are pretty young as well. Um, youth doesn't need to be, [lip smacks] uh...
9:56
Or sorry, experience doesn't need to be a prerequisite to expertise in a particular field or industry. Mm-hmm.
10:00
And I, I think the first thing that we look for is people have got experience in the domain that they're going to build their company in, and for two reasons in particular.
10:09
One is that by understanding that domain or that sector really well, they're better placed to understand what problems the people in it are facing and therefore build better solutions, um, and can post stay ahead of the competition in that respect 'cause they've just got a deeper sense of understanding of that industry.
10:26
And the second would be by virtue of having been in that environment, they've probably got a network of early adopter customers through their friends and, and colleagues. And I think for us, you know, if you...
10:35
One of the common things around our portfolio is that you look at the founders and they do tend to have a fair bit of experience in the sectors in which they're operating.
10:43
Um, and I think that for us, you know, having an initial conversation with a founder and, you know, just learning about their background and then why they've chosen to start the company that they're starting, that goes a long way for us and helps us understand, you know, why they're well placed to build the company that they're going after.
10:57
What's, um, uh, maybe, maybe both in terms of the experience, but what's a unique or novel, um, example? Uh, don't have to lean into a s- a specific founder, um, or whatnot- Oh... but something as- Mm...
11:10
part of the storytelling that they can communicate to you as part of that, um, [lip smacks] you know, let, let's discuss this potential partnership. I mean, I think, you know, we've got...
11:19
We're currently investing from our third fund and there's a company in it called Paperly, which is founded by, um, Daniel, who was a, a, um, [lip smacks]
11:29
uh, worked in a computer kind of programming role at a high school, and understand the sheer volume of complexity- Yeah...
11:34
that schools have to deal with around, with around or with respect to compliance and administration, especially in, you know, in the age where there's more and more scrutiny on schools for, you know, maintaining their, their obligations with the regulators or with parents or social license or whatever it might be.
11:51
And then he went out to build this solution and recruited his, his brother-in-law. Uh, or it could be
11:56
Restoke, which is one of the companies in the fund as well, which is a company that serves or, or has built a product for hospital- the hospitality industry, and it's founded by a former restaurateur who owned his own businesses in- Mm...
12:08
the restaurant industry for 10, 15 years before teaming up with a a CTO who had the tech chops to build a product to kind of launch what they're doing.
12:16
So I think y- there's, there's plenty of examples across the portfolio where they've h- had this experience in the industry for five, 10 plus years, and it just helps them understand what's, what's going on there.
12:26
And it means that when you have a conversation with a founder and you just keep asking why, you can really pull on the thread of, of why they're doing something, and it's that level of understanding that I help- that I think helps, you know, immeasurably in terms of, of a company's success rate because it will lead to a better product or service than someone who just doesn't have that understanding can build.
12:48
W- would you, would you say, um, and pe- perhaps this might be from the example of someone that's wildly experienced in a particular, um, field, l- l- let's say, uh, management consultant in, in this area or, or, you know, obviously in scenarios of working in particular industries that that storytelling component might be undersold a little bit on their side?
13:09
Like, has that, has that been a common occurrence or- Mm... um, do you need to extract that out of them to, I guess, qualify or quantify the amount of experience they've had in a particular domain? I think you, um...
13:22
I mean, sometimes pitch decks can be misleading, and so you need to kind of, kind of see beyond them.
13:27
And, and at the moment, all the pitch decks that we're seeing, not all of them, but 90% of them are all made in Claude and look exactly the same, which I think is kind of lost on founders, especially when they're delegating some of the storytelling to AI, which tends- Yeah...
13:39
to be more verbose and less, um, succinct, um, than, than you'd like in terms of articulating why someone is working on a particular opportunity. So I do think that it can be...
13:50
You know, it's relatively simple to pull out in a conversation, but also it needs to be relevant or irrelevant. It needs to be communicated in the materials that are being shared. You know, a lot of...
14:00
I think it's well known in the venture industry, but maybe not as well known amongst the founder community, just how quickly, you know, your initial deck or, or screening will be from a venture capital firm where we all look at thousands of decks a year, and the initial screening can be, you know, 30 seconds to two minutes.
14:18
And, and you're not trying to figure out if you'll make an investment or not, you're trying to figure out if it's worth spending more time on that opportunity to learn if you should make an investment. Mm. Yeah.
14:25
And so it's really important to be able to articulate the problem that you're working on and why you're working on it and, and how your solution makes sense really, really clearly.
14:32
And I think unfortunately in the world of AI slop at the moment, what we're seeing is that that clarity is, is not as strong as it was historically.
14:40
Um, and if anything, I'd urge founders to kind of write their own pitch decks. Yeah. Yeah, fair. All right.
14:46
L- let's, um, maybe then go into just really specifically then the, um, the specific investment thesis, what you're looking for, a- and maybe to add the, um, at, at this point in time, you know, mid-September 2026, uh, what does the fund, um, look like?
15:03
The most, uh, recent one and I guess the, the, the, the time elapsed since that was launched. Yeah, sure thing. So, um, we...
15:11
In terms of the thesis, we, you know, we've been investing since 2019 as the vintage of our first fund. We've got 85 portfolio companies.
15:19
Over that time, we've invested in, in many different types of technology businesses and including several AI companies, like the... a lot of them.
15:27
And, and even the companies that may not have been AI companies back in 2019, you know, the one thing you know about founders is they're always gonna be adopting the latest technology, and so they kind of morph into AI businesses anyway.
15:38
What we found over that period of time, especially over the last couple of years, is that the frameworks and the, um, criteria required to select companies have evolved, where, um, some of the criteria you might use historically just aren't sufficient in the AI era to understand what is a long-term defensible barrier to entry.
15:57
And so, earlier this year, we spent a bunch of time, you know, really reassessing our frameworks and what it would mean to look at AI companies and also rebuilding our systems internally to get ahead of that, um, and take advantage of, of the, uh, productivity gains that you can get through m- many of the technologies now available, which are disrupting venture capital just as much as they're disrupting other industries.
16:20
And so, where we've landed now is that we will, you know, invest in innovative capital-lean, capital-efficient, and market-ready companies and, and that level of innovation, you know, needs to include, uh, a, a pretty strong AI component, not just in the product that, the people are building, but also in the ops that they have got around the company too because that helps with, um, you know, capital efficiency and also reducing the amount of capital that needs to be required, and therefore you have less dilution and stronger investment returns.
16:52
So that's the kind of lens- Mm...
16:52
that we use at the moment, but there's been a lot of work we've done around how you assess long-term competitive advantage in, in this era, which is, I think some of the systems and frameworks used historically just don't cut the mustard anymore.
17:03
Yeah, fair. So what was the s- uh, size of that, um, most recent fund then? We...
17:09
So the first, uh, sorry, the third fund, we did the first close in that July last year, and we've now made six investments from that, or five have been made and we've got the sixth now, and we're targeting a $50 million size at, at final close.
17:26
Okay.
17:26
Maybe can I lean in then, um, you're doing the assessment of, um, the, uh, u- upcoming partnerships with these portfolio companies and their, um, capacity to, you know, h- have really refined operations, um, in effect using AI, et cetera.
17:45
Um, but let's talk about your, your own, um, which you added on...
17:50
I, I referenced it at the start of the conversation, but I, I found it really interesting that you include that in the comms, um, out and sort of, um, gave a little peek under the hood, you know, a little bit of, uh, building in public, so to speak.
18:03
I, I, I would be fascinated, um, to sort of hear what, what that looks like and, uh, I guess the work that's led up to this point in, I'm assuming, rebuilding from the ground up. Yeah. Sure thing. Happy to.
18:14
And there's more that we'll be sharing in the coming weeks with some of the stuff that we've built and that, that Sam, who's our operating partner, will be kind of sharing more details on.
18:22
I think, um, so at the start of the year, we got our team together for a, um, strategy session, and we kind of realized at that strategy session that, one, we needed to You know, like I said before, re-evaluate the frameworks we're using to make investments, but two, that we did want to be on the front foot with adopting the technologies that are influencing our industry, um, because otherwise you're gonna get left behind pretty quickly.
18:47
And so we actually made the decision at the start of the year to stop making initial investments. So you noted before that we've been relatively prolific over the years in terms of deploying investments. Yeah.
18:57
Um, but over this year, we haven't done as many initial investments.
18:59
We still did a few follow-ons, because we spent a lot of time rebuilding all of our systems and processes from the ground up, which is painstaking and boring work.
19:08
You know, there's a whole bunch of databases you need to build which take, you know, weeks.
19:12
You know, you look at your investment criteria, you look at, you know, what your criteria are, what the questions you need to ask in order to understand if something meets your investment criteria.
19:21
You need to determine what a good answer is, what a great answer is, what the edge cases are, all of these sorts of things.
19:27
And so over the last six, eight months, we've spent a bunch of time developing tools internally, uh, you know, several agents that now do sourcing and screening and competition analysis, and all of these sorts of bits and pieces that have helped us improve the productivity of our own organization.
19:45
And we've hired devs offshore to help build a lot of the, um, systems as well. So that's been a really interesting process, and it's had a couple of benefits.
19:53
The first is we're able to be a lot more effective with the team size that we have, um, in terms of getting up to speed on a particular deal, um, and also freeing up partner time to spend more time doing the things that AI can't do.
20:09
So our big, our big kind of rationale here is what can we automate? What can we make more efficient? How do we make our team more productive?
20:15
But how do we also ensure that our team can be spending the time using their discretion and judgment to do the things that frankly AI can't do, or that we don't want it to do, and really getting to some- understand investment opportunities?
20:27
And the second benefit has been that by requiring all of our team to build things themselves, they've now got a far deeper understanding of the investments that we're making and how difficult it is to build certain things or, or not in some instances, and also have a better understanding of the various tools available to be used, not just on the, the product side for our portfolio companies or prospective portfolio companies- Mm-hmm...
20:50
but also on the ops side themselves too. So it's been a really interesting learning curve.
20:54
One where there's a huge headwind initially, where you go through this massive decrease in productivity, where it takes you way longer to do the most fundamental things because you feel like you're going backwards.
21:05
And I think we're starting to come out the back end of that now, but it's been a really long journey, and it wouldn't have been possible if we were still making initial investments. So,
21:14
um, we're now, we're now back in the market making initial investments because we feel like we've crossed that chasm of, of that unproductive kind of phase.
21:21
But it's certainly required a fair bit of, um, application of effort. That's awesome.
21:26
Um, yeah, well, I'm looking forward to seeing what gets, um, sort of, uh, announced out, um, as it gets rolled out by Sam and the team. But maybe to round that out, this chat, um,
21:37
y- you know, like an investment is obviously like a, a two-way, um, piece. You, you have the capital t- you need to deploy and, um, and the founders are seeking the capital for growth.
21:46
But, um, I guess from your vantage point, like there's, there's many ways to approach this in terms of having, um, these elaborate and in-depth conversations around s- um, entering that partnership.
21:59
W- what, what is, what is, I guess, a bit of a recommendation from your perspective in terms of something that would really, I guess, turn the Tall Order team's head, so to speak, um, in terms of- In terms of a, a founder approaching us looking to obtain investment?
22:13
Yeah, whether it's public visibility, whether, whether it's a...
22:16
Y- you know, you've obviously already expressed, um, in regards to [laughs] writing their own decks, um, and, and moving away from the, um, you know, that real milquetoast sort of, um, uh, AI generic thing which, which looks like everything else.
22:30
So I, I'm just curious in terms of something that will, you know, raise your eyebrow and sort of really capture the attention to continue that conversation far faster. Sure.
22:39
I mean, there's probably a couple of things that I would recommend at the moment. The first is it's quite normal for us to, to know founders for weeks, months, potentially even years before we invest. And so just- Hmm...
22:51
getting on the radar so that we can see what you're building and how you're going about that, um, with a long-term view is, is helpful, and it can be as simple as reaching out and saying, "Look, we're building something, we're not raising, but we'd love to kind of keep you in the loop."
23:03
And, and I think every time we've ever had that happen, we say, "Yeah, sure." And I don't know how many distribution lists someone for, for founders that we haven't kind of put money into yet, but we might in the future.
23:12
The, the second thing is the reputation for Tall Order will build, will be built predominantly by the companies that we invest in that are massively successful, but it will also be built by the 99% of people that we say no to, that have, you know, applied for funding or potentially jobs or whatever it might be, that don't get what they're after, which is the nature of the business.
23:31
And so we put a lot of time and care and effort into the companies that we say no to, and especially if those, you know, companies that apply to us or, or, or, um, are seeking funding
23:45
are, um, you know, working on problems or, or issues that we consider to be important ones. We'll try to help them out, even if it's in non-kind of funding ways.
23:54
One of the things that's become apparent in the last few weeks is just how many founders are connecting Claude or OpenAI to their emails and how impersonal their emails are.
24:05
And so I've had this with founders in our own portfolio. I said, "I don't think you realize just how obvious it is that your responses are pretty impersonal."
24:12
And I think in this day and age, you should be really careful about the, uh, making a, uh, decision to connect Claude and have someone else effectively write your emails for you- Hmm...
24:24
and the impression that that makes with people that you're engaging with should be a deliberate decision. And if you wanna do that, then great.
24:31
But at the same time, I think it's really important for founders to realize that, that if we're saying no to a company or saying, "Yeah, keep us in the loop as you're going through the process, you know, as you build out the company and when your fundraise comes to term to time to do that, let us know."
24:46
And if we're- oftentimes we'll try and help connect them with other people that might be more relevant, either investors or partners or whoever it might be, to help them get where they're going as part of just trying to help pay it forward and, and help, you know, the, for the founders so that if we're not the right fit, that in the future they might come back to us when they are the right fit.
25:04
Mm.
25:04
And when you're having those sorts of discussions and you get a fairly impersonal response back from Claude, and it's AI sloppy and it's four paragraphs instead of one that the, the founder has actually thought about, it does diminish the, the reputation of the founder i- in my view.
25:19
And I think it's just worth being careful for companies, especially in this day and age, about being deliberate with the decisions around what am I gonna be using AI to do and what, what won't I use AI to do and, and, and being more considered with that, because at the moment I think that's not necessarily as well known as it could be.
25:34
Mm. Yeah. Yeah.
25:36
I, um, you know, and, and by the same token, I guess in terms of, uh, how your operation ha- has sort of been, um, focused on, um, in terms of more, more efficiency or a better way of running, but also retaining that element of the things that y- you know, you need to focus on from a personal perspective.
25:56
Um- Yeah, absolutely... maybe, uh, last question, um, sort of a hard one.
26:00
Uh, one thing that, you know, is particularly exciting you at the moment, um, whe- whether that you've seen across your desk recently or, um, or, or imminent, um, but you can't say the, the recent rebrand.
26:13
One thing that's exciting me at the moment. I think, um, I am really enjoying, I think, face-to-face meetings more than I ever have before. Mm.
26:26
Which is interesting 'cause I think anyone who's worked in venture capital realizes there can be a ton of meetings and they can be quite, um, exhausting if you've got back-to-back meetings all day.
26:36
And I think with some of the, um, productivity gains that we've got through the changes that we've made, we've been able to
26:43
reduce time spent on things that aren't necessarily as, as help- well, that don't need the time that we, that we might have put into them previously 'cause now we've, we've automated them. Mm.
26:52
And so I really enjoy the, you know, opportunity to catch up with more founders face to face over a cup of coffee or do these sorts of things, which potentially I haven't had the time to do as much of recently.
27:01
And I think just kind of slowing down and having a cup of coffee and getting a sense of, of who someone is and what they're working on and, and why they're working on it, um, I always find that really interesting because to start a company, it's, it's al- it's hard.
27:13
We're talking before the, the show about just how the odds are stacked against you.
27:17
Um, but the w- one of the best things about the job is working with people who are chasing their dreams, and so I always find that really, really interesting and, and motivating.
27:25
Um, so that's been actually quite enjoyable lately, perhaps because it's been nicer weather and you can have more coffees outside at the moment. Absolutely. Yeah. Very cool.
27:34
Um, and maybe a little on the spot, any, um, movie or music recommendations? I, um, I throw this in there and, um- Oh... throw a few people into a tailspin every now and again 'cause it, uh, comes from out of nowhere.
27:44
Tailspin. Movie or music recommendations. What have I seen lately that was good? Um, I rewatched a, a film which is a...
27:51
Uh, this is more esoteric, um, but I watched a, rewatched one of my favorite films a few weeks ago with my wife, which is called 'The Truffle Hunters' and couldn't recommend it more highly.
28:01
It's probably a bit hard- Yeah...
28:02
to find and to dig through it, but it's about these old Italian men who are renowned to find these, um, white truffles and, uh, ostensibly it's about the relationship that these, these, um, men have with their, um, the people trying to find the truffles and buy the truffles from them, but it's really about the relationship that they have with their dogs and, and their partners and their friends.
28:22
And there's a lot of young people who are worried that these men are about to die and that their secret locations for finding truffles are about to, um, be lost forever and trying to get the information out of them, and they just won't have a bar of it, and it's a really sweet, um, movie that I would, um, highly recommend.
28:36
Documentary. That actually sounds awesome. Uh, a documentary. Okay, cool. Uh, where can I, uh, where can I track that down? [laughs] I actually wanna watch it right now. Uh, yeah, sure. 'The Truffle Hunters', you...
28:44
I'm sure you can buy it on, on Apple TV or maybe it's on some- Okay, cool... streaming services. And it's potentially, apparently there's a sequel coming out soon, which is why I was thinking about it. All right.
28:53
Well, when I release this episode, I'll, I'll also give my, um, my rating for the, for the, um, movie 'cause, or the doco 'cause I wanna watch it. Um- Check it. Yeah, please do.
29:02
Oh, 'cause you do movie ratings, don't you, for A24? I do. I do. I do. That's right. Yeah. I do.
29:05
Do movie- So then I'm gonna ask the question of you, any recommendations for me of great things you've, you've read or listened to or watched lately that you think, uh, would be good for me to check out? Hmm.
29:14
Um, [clicks tongue] oh, um, do you like really synthy, um, sort of style music? Uh, like- Yes...
29:25
one of my favorite groups called The Black Queen, uh, I've just found out are touring Australia again, so I'll send you over one of their albums, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
29:35
Um, uh, but the funny story with that is that I made my wife listen to it, and she said that it, um, hasn't left her rotation for the past three, four, five weeks or so. So that's, um, that's one. Lovely.
29:46
It's a, it's a little bit Nine Inch Nails-y, but it's, um, but it's a, a very good listen. I look forward to checking it out. I will certainly do that. Beautiful. Um, thank you, Rohan.
29:56
Um, well, congratulations to you, but of course to the wider team on the rebrand for Tall Order. Incredibly exciting, and I love a good rebrand as your, as, as you know from my sort of side of the fence.
30:06
But, um, hopefully for any founders listening have got a really good idea of, um, the Tall Order investment thesis, and of course follow along on the channel so you can hear a little bit more on the, um, the philosophy behind the AI tooling, um, and the ops, um, development, um, in the back end as well, which is incredibly important work.
30:24
Uh, Rohan, thank you. Gus, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on the show, and really enjoyed it, so thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, mate. [outro music]
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