Eight figure revenue in competitive markets. Products that double revenue in a single month. Customers who tattoo your logo on their body. Not growth hacks. Not hype. Real traction, earned the hard way.

Brendan Hill sits down with Daniel Slater from Relume, Liam Millward from Instant, and Sally Yu from King River Capital to unpack what actually drives breakout AI companies in 2025. The answer is not building more features. It is obsession with distribution, ruthless focus on speed to value, and teams that move faster than their competitors think is possible.

Relume did not start as an AI startup. It started as an agency. Building websites manually, feeling the pain firsthand, and removing the work that should never have existed. Instant did not find product market fit once. It found it three times, killing products, rebuilding teams, and learning the hard way that revenue without stickiness is a mirage. And from Silicon Valley, Sally Yu shares what she sees across the fastest growing AI companies in the world, why community is becoming the real moat, and why founders with unwavering conviction now win disproportionately.

They talk candidly about churn, mistakes, hiring A players, monthly execution cycles, and why most AI products fail not because the tech is bad, but because the company moves too slowly. This is a conversation about momentum. About earning distribution. About building products people would fight to keep.

If you want to understand how modern AI companies actually scale, and what it takes to stay ahead once you do, this episode is for you.

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Guest Founders:

Relume: relume.io

Connect with Daniel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-james-slater-13079288/

Instant: instant.one

Connect with Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liammillward/

King River Capital:http://www.kingriver.co/

Connect with Sally: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-tech/

Stay Updated:

Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rZ9SajGVXkO8oxuvEHAsk?si=I2yR92GgRZa-Fdqbp8T4bw

Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oversubscribed/id1848789610

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or financial product. Brendan Hill is an investor in Everlab, Relevance AI and A1Base.

About the Host:

Brendan Hill is a Venture Partner at TEN13 and an angel investor in Australia’s fastest-growing startups, including Everlab, Heidi Health, Relevance AI and Instant. If you are interested in finding out more about angel investing, connect with Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsbrendanhill/

They break down the rise of agentic AI, how engineering culture in SF accelerates innovation, and why the next generation of founders need to think in $100B outcomes. They dive into everything from 10 to 20 times engineering productivity gains, to building autonomous healthcare, to creating the communication layer for AI coworkers that everyday people will talk to like friends.

They also unpack what Australia must do to stay competitive, how to build teams that love hard problems, and why ambition, pace and hands-on founders matter more than ever. It’s a rare inside look at the operators defining the next era of AI infrastructure, agent orchestration and human health.

If you want to understand where AI agents are really going, and how Australia can catch up to the frontier, get subscribed.

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Is AI in the Physical World the next $100 Trillion Opportunity?

In this episode of Oversubscribed, we go deep into the "Hard Tech" revolution. From defence-grade autonomy to data infrastructure for robots, we dive deep into the frontier of hard tech with the founders building it.

Brendan Hill sits down with Michael Irwin (Co-Founder at Breaker), Joe Harris (Founder at Alloy), and returning guest Charlie Gearside (Co-Founder at Eucalyptus / Build Australia) for a wild conversation about robotics, physical AI, national ambition, and why Australia needs to start making things again.

They talk building AI that lives on the edge, the ethics of defence, hiring A-players for impossible problems, and why the next industrial revolution might start right here. It’s an unfiltered look at the people shaping Australia’s place in the age of autonomy.

Time Stamps

00:00 – Intro: Founders, frontier tech, and Australia’s new wave of builders

02:00 – Breaker’s origin story: building robots that act on human intent

05:00 – From drones to defense: autonomy, privacy, and life on the edge

08:20 – The hardest problems left to solve (and why easy ones are gone)

10:40 – Sponsor: Vanta – building trust and compliance for startups

12:00 – Alloy’s story: from Eucalyptus to building the data brain for robots

16:00 – Why Joe left a rocket ship to start from zero

19:30 – Building for the age of robotics: data, telemetry, and the next frontier

23:00 – Finding A-players: how ambitious missions attract ambitious people

25:00 – Culture, conviction, and what passion really looks like inside startups

27:00 – The defense dilemma: ethics, values, and the post-Ukraine mindset

30:00 – Going global: why Australia’s best founders build beyond its borders

34:00 – Build Australia: a new movement for ambition and national pride

38:00 – Manufacturing, energy, and why we stopped making things

43:00 – How robotics could solve Australia’s affordability crisis

46:00 – The humanoid debate: specialized vs. general intelligence

50:00 – Life in 2035: what robots at home might really look like

52:00 – Data, autonomy, and the next AI arms race

56:00 – How Breaker and Alloy could power each other’s missions

59:00 – Skynet, manipulation, and the ethics of AI power

1:03:00 – Competition, collaboration, and the Cambrian explosion of robotics

1:06:00 – Founder stories: from CB radios to humanoids in hack houses

1:09:00 – Building the next industrial revolution from Australia

1:10:00 – Final pitches: why you should join Breaker, Alloy, and Build Australia

1:11:00 – Outro: Vanta, Ten13, and building what comes next

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Welcome to the first episode of Oversubscribed, where Brendan Hill brings together Thomas Kelly (Co-Founder and CEO at Heidi Health), Liam Millward (Co-Founder and CEO at Instant), and Charlie Gearside (Co-Founder at Eucalyptus), to dissect the decisions that separate endurance from extinction. They talk about near-death pivots, hiring A-players, and why distribution so often beats product. No theory. No vanity metrics. Just the real psychology of building under pressure.

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

That’s the energy behind this show, Where Australia’s most ambitious founders and investors sit down for unfiltered, in-person conversations about building through chaos, from near-death moments and brutal pivots to the art of hiring killers, raising capital, and scaling conviction.

Think All-In, Flagrant, and Full Send, but for the next generation of Australian startups. No theory. No polished PR. Just raw, honest insight from the people actually doing the work.

This is Oversubscribed with Brendan Hill