Podcast · Business

The Founders Fire

by Dan Moussa - Thirdway Advisory · English · Business

Every founder has two stories, the one on the stage and the one over a whiskey. The Founder's Fire are the second ones. I sit down with founders to talk about the things we all go through, but no one talks about. The pressure, the doubt, the times they nearly gave up and how they turned it all aro

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr
Latest: 14 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

14 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 16 minNew

A World Champion, a $6 Million Dream and the Cyclone Before Opening Day - With Daniel Watkins

Dan Watkins had spent years building his $6 million dream. The council had signed it off. The mayor and media were booked for opening day. Then flooding associated with Cyclone Debbie tore through the park. For the three-time world wakeboarding champion, it was the beginning of what he describes as ten major floods in ten years—and a cycle of rebuilding that would test far more than his determination. In this episode of Founders Fire, Dan Moussa sits down with Dan Watkins to explore his journey from Bonnie Doon to the international pro tour, and from professional athlete to building GC Wake…

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Earlier episodes 21 most recent

S1 · E20 · 7 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 5 min
From $900 Websites to Winning Westpac as a Client - Ken Kencevski
Ken Kencevski helped take his family’s car-parts business online and into international markets. Then he left to start again. His family thought he was crazy. For six months, they barely told anyone he’d gone, just in case he changed his mind. Ken was out knocking on doors in Wollongong, selling $900 websites and building momentum wherever he could. But one of the biggest rewards had nothing to do with his new business. Once work stopped dominating every conversation, he felt like he got his parents back. In this episode of Founders Fire, Dan sits down with the founder of Devika to explore…
S1 · E19 · 30 Sep 2026 · 54 min
He Was a Health Coach. He Was Burning Himself Out - With James Matolich
James Matolich was helping other people get healthier while running himself into the ground. Personal training in the morning. Working in his café all day. Back to the gym for evening sessions. By the weekend, he was so exhausted he’d tell his now-wife not to speak to him until he’d slept. Later, becoming a dad made the cost of those hours even clearer. He was helping clients reach their goals while missing bedtime with his daughter. In this episode of Founders Fire, Dan sits down with the founder of JM Peak Performance to explore the experiences behind his work with founders and business…
S1 · E18 · 23 Sep 2026 · 48 min
He Built It By Going All In. Then He Had to Let Go - With Ceri Cummings
Ceri Cummings was answering messages at three in the morning, coaching in the gym and working 16–17-hour days across multiple businesses. Then severe nerve pain left him unable to work. While he struggled with sleepless nights and the guilt of letting his team down, something happened that changed how he saw his role: his businesses kept growing. On this episode of Founders Fire, recorded on tour in Sydney, Dan sits down with the BOLT Fitness founder and GOAT co-founder to trace the decisions that brought him here. From 11 years in the British Army and a rugby contract that took him to…
S1 · E17 · 16 Sep 2026 · 58 min
He Lost $1 Million at 36. It Changed How He Built Everything After - With Dan Copsey
He lost more than $1 million at 36, walked away from the business, and later realised he hadn't properly dealt with any of it. Dan Copsey has built businesses across transport, marketing, recruitment, technology and investment. Today he co-runs TMSPC alongside his childhood best mate Alex, with interests spanning multiple companies, international teams and not-for-profit work. But the part of his story that shaped him most came before all of that. In this episode Dan is open about losing seven figures, the burnout that followed, why driving a forklift for three months became one of the best…
S1 · E16 · 9 Sep 2026 · 50 min
He Lost His Company, His Health and Almost His Life - With Declan Kluver
Success looked incredible from the outside. Declan Kluver was building one of Australia's fastest-growing recruitment businesses. His company was growing rapidly, the media attention was building, and the future looked limitless. Behind the scenes, however, years of relentless pressure, chronic stress and undiagnosed bipolar disorder were taking a devastating toll. What followed changed his life forever. In one of the most honest conversations we've ever recorded on Founders Fire , Declan shares the reality of founder burnout, the warning signs he missed, losing the business that defined his…
S1 · E15 · 2 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
He Built the Perfect Exit. It Nearly Broke Him - With Ian Goodwin
Every founder dreams of building a successful business and one day selling it. Ian Goodwin did exactly that. After founding Cludo, scaling it rapidly and navigating an acquisition during the uncertainty of COVID, Ian achieved what many founders spend their careers chasing. But what followed wasn't the finish line he expected. The pressure of earn-out targets, leading a team through constant change, and carrying the weight of everyone else's certainty eventually led to complete burnout. In this episode, Ian shares the reality behind selling a business, why acquisitions are far more…
S1 · E14 · 26 Aug 2026 · 1 hr
He Went Bankrupt at 21. Then Built One of Australia's Most Respected Coffee Brands. With Peter Wolff
At 21, Peter Wolff was declared bankrupt after unknowingly signing a personal guarantee for his family's business. Years later, he walked away from Veneziano, the coffee company he co-founded, after a partnership that had turned toxic. Then, just eleven weeks after opening a new café in Brisbane, COVID hit. He’s had chefs walk out, he’s broken down in the kitchen, and spent the next nine months cooking every service himself. Today, Peter is the founder of Wolf Coffee Roasters, one of Australia's most respected specialty coffee businesses. Alongside his wife Penny, he's built a business that…
S1 · E13 · 19 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 19 min
We Grew 170% a Year… Then It Nearly Broke the Business with Jordan Gauder
From the outside the business looked like it was booming ... but really he was $620,000 in debt and no one knew. Jordan Gauder built Gen Physio from a one-man in-home physio service on the Gold Coast into a national allied health company, growing around 170% a year for three years to more than $10 million in revenue. He had a strong team and a model that was ahead of its market. But the climb came with a reckoning. We talk about the bills he never knew he wasn't paying, the team that he needed around him, the $620,000 debt and why growing faster than his own skills nearly cost him everything…
S1 · E12 · 12 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 9 min
His first ever client called to threaten a lawsuit. It made his whole business with David Aherne
Every founder gets tested. Most don't get tested by the first client they ever land. David Ahearne runs Across the Ocean, a freight forwarding and customs business that moves shipments between factories and warehouses all over the world, from China, the UAE and the US into Australia, and exports Australian minerals across Southeast Asia. Eighteen years in, it's a serious operation with a team, a strong industry reputation, and the kind of blue-chip commercial accounts most forwarders spend careers chasing. He built all of it starting from nothing: no job, no contacts, and $500 he had to…
S1 · E11 · 5 Aug 2026 · 56 min
70% of his revenue vanished overnight. He rebuilt it from a locked-down apartment with Don Hett
Don landed in Australia with $1,500 ... cleaning public toilets at 3:30am before uni and stacking shelves at night, sending money home for his brother's medical bills. He built that into Clean Kings, a national cleaning company with 650 staff, and four more businesses under his venture studio Six Silo. But 2020 took almost all of it at once COVID wiped out 70% of his revenue overnight, his fashion label was sinking, his marriage was falling apart across a closed border, and he lost his dog. In this episode he's open about the times that followed, the pressure to just quit and get a job, the…
S1 · E10 · 29 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 6 min
He tripled the family business in a year, and then the unthinkable happened with Julian Grasso
His dad told him to make his own brother redundant. He did it. They didn't speak for 18 months. Julian Grasso didn't inherit a business or get handed a stake. He walked out of a corporate 30-year plan, pitched his own parents to start something together, and turned one truck into a 35-truck waste and environmental services company, tripling it in the first year. But going into business with the people who raised you comes with a cost the family photos never show. In this episode he's open about running the company as his parents' boss, buying them out, the intervention where he had to ask…
S1 · E9 · 22 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 8 min
Two school mates raised £100 million and built the World's Best Surf Park
Andy Hadden built Lost Shore, Europe's largest inland surf resort, on a disused quarry outside Edinburgh. It was voted the world's best surf park. What almost nobody knows is what those years actually took. Andy had the idea in 2012 and didn't open until 2024. It took 18 months to raise the first £40,000. Along the way there were leaflets handed out with his face on them, mates back home all saying he'd lost the plot, missed holidays, a marriage that didn't survive it, and a phone call from the bank four weeks before construction that nearly ended the whole thing. Chris Bain and Andy Hadden…
S1 · E8 · 15 Jul 2026 · 58 min
His account was drained to $0. Now he's building to $100 Mil
They woke up one morning to a bank balance of zero and a transaction they didn't understand. The tax man had emptied the account.They still had to make payroll that week. Adam Hall started AH Fencing eight years ago with his best mate Matt, no business knowledge, and a plan that lasted about a month. They didn't know what a profit and loss was. They didn't know the tax office could take your money. They nearly went under more than once, paid their staff on personal credit cards, and cut their own salaries to $50k while everyone they employed earned more. Today the business turns over $30…
S1 · E7 · 8 Jul 2026 · 54 min
The story behind the Ferraris Emil Juresic has never told until now
You've seen the cars. The offices. The 500 staff. The half a million people watching him online. You haven't seen the four years that made all of it possible and the moment he lost everything. Before the property empire, Emil Juresic was a boy in a war zone, walking five kilometres through sniper fire to carry water back to his family. Four years with no power, no clean water, barely any food, waking up each morning not knowing if that was the day. He arrived in Australia at 15 with an accent, no English, and one decision already made: no one would ever be the boss of his life again. He…
S1 · E6 · 1 Jul 2026 · 56 min
He could have declared bankruptcy, He paid back every dollar instead - Tim Duggal
He owed more than a million dollars and was too ashamed to tell almost anyone. Today he runs a multi-million-dollar business.Tim Duggal built OzMobiles from a second bedroom in St Kilda, buying and selling second-hand phones out the front of his apartment building, into a multi-million-dollar phone trade-in business. But a few years ago he borrowed a million dollars, felt rich, and watched it nearly take everything. A bank manager told him he was in a death spiral. In this episode he's open about the debt, the isolation, the shame he had to drop to survive, and the chance meeting at a 70th…
S1 · E5 · 24 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 7 min
Nightclubs to a $30 million business. None of it was the plan - Sacha Cornford
She left school three months early, worked nightclubs, trained as an electrician, and once went two years without an oven. Now she co-runs a traffic control business turning over $30 million a year. Sacha Cornford has lived more lives than most founders, and built one of Queensland's fastest-growing businesses through the middle of it. In this episode she shares about the broke single-mum years, a late ADHD diagnosis, the breakdown she had while buying the company she now runs, and the business partnership that makes it all work. Along the way she talks about why a business is a vehicle and…
S1 · E4 · 17 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
Cancer at 29 gave him the one question that gets him through anything with Scott Horton
He survived cancer in his twenties. Years later he lost his marriage and his business in the same stretch, and it nearly cost him his life. NOTE:This episode discusses mental health and suicide. If anything here lands close to home, support is available in Australia through Lifeline on 13 11 14, and Reach Out at au.reachout.com Scott Horton is one of the best-known names in Brisbane recruitment, co-founder of u&u and now Troocoo. But the story behind two successful firms runs through an alcoholic childhood in Birmingham, a cancer diagnosis at 29, and a collapse so fast it put him in…
S1 · E3 · 10 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 7 min
He sold his coffee company for $47 million. It nearly killed him - Phil Di Bella
He started Di Bella Coffee with $5,000. He sold it for $47 million. This is what that actually cost him. Phil Di Bella built one of Australia's biggest coffee companies, then nearly lost himself doing it. 167kg. Blood pressure of 177. Nightmares for six months. In this first episode of The Founder's Fire he talks about the parts founders never say out loud, and the funeral that made him rethink what success was even for. If you're building something, watch this before you burn yourself down building it. 0:00 The two stories every founder has4:44 Why he calls his pain "premium unleaded"12:25…
S1 · E2 · 10 Jun 2026 · 53 min
Never tell your partner everything. The advice this founder gives every other founder - Rudy Crous
He signed the deal every startup dreams of: 5,000 jobs a week. Then COVID wiped it out overnight. Rudy Crous arrived in Australia as a teenager with a backpack and not much else. He became an organisational psychologist, spent years studying how people behave under pressure, then co-founded Compono, an HR tech company backed by Shark Tank's Andrew Banks. When his big deal collapsed in 2020 he rebuilt the business into the technology that now powers driver licensing across most of the country. In this episode he's blunt about the restructures, the loneliness, the two pieces of advice he gives…
S1 · E1 · 10 Jun 2026 · 52 min
The fire that built her business is the same one that nearly burned it down with Niamh Whiley
Niamh Whiley quit her job with $2,000 in the bank, a brand new mortgage and no clients. Under two years later she runs Aligned Allied Health with a team of 12, helping hundreds of people. But the person who treats founders for a living turned out to be the worst at taking her own advice. In this episode she's honest about the burnout, the self-doubt, the friends she lost, and the money mistakes nobody warns you about. If you're building something and pretending you're fine, watch this one. 0:00 The therapist founders call when they're breaking 2:50 She lied to the bank and quit with $2,000…
9 Jun 2026 · 1 min
Welcome to The Founders Fire
Every founder has two stories, the one on the stage and the one over a whiskey. The Founder's Fire is the second one. We sit down with founders to talk about the things we all go through, but no one talks about. The pressure, the doubt, the times they nearly gave up and how they turned it all around. If you're building something and want to hear what it actually takes, this is for you. Make sure you hit follow because I can't guarantee you've never heard these stories before. See behind the scenes over at https://www.instagram.com/danmoussa_thirdwayadvisory/ Connect on Linked In -…

About The Founders Fire

The Founders Fire is a English business podcast from Dan Moussa - Thirdway Advisory. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Dan Moussa - Thirdway Advisory
Language: English
Category: Business
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr
Latest episode: 14 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1896905344
Rights: Dan Moussa - Thirdway Advisory

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