SafetyCulture, Canva and Vinomofo team up for documentary to bust myths about startup founders

Some of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs have teamed up for a documentary that deep-dives into the world of startups, growth and hustling.

Produced by SafetyCulture founder and chief executive Luke Anear, and directed by Emmy award winner Patrick Moreau, The New Hustle is a documentary that features interviews and anecdotes from Canva co-founders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht, Vinomofo co-founders Andre Eikmeier and Justin Dry, as well as insights from Silicon Valley VCs Bill Tai and Rick Baker.

For Anear, the motivation behind the documentary was to “give back” to the startup ecosystem and inspire a new wave of Australian entrepreneurs.

“We all get asked every day to share our stories for people to learn from them,” Anear says. 

“There’s this tech revolution happening, yet most people don’t know how it relates to them and how they can participate in it.”

By showing the process behind growing a startup, Anear hopes to encourage workers that might have been displaced from traditional mining and engineering jobs, as well as anyone looking for a career change, to consider entrepreneurship.

“A lot of people are fearful of technology – they think it means robots and less jobs – [but] it’s actually the biggest opportunity of our lifetimes,” he says.

Anear notes that there is a “whole ecosystem of jobs around tech,” and that 60% of SafetyCulture’s employees are non-technical.

“Tech companies are really just built to solve real world problems,” Anear says.

SafetyCulture is a platform that promotes safety and quality control on construction sites, with offices in Australia, the US and UK. The startup has driven 30 million site inspections for customers globally, which include Qantas, Hilton and Coca-Cola.

By showing successful founders in their daily lives, Anear hopes the documentary will show that successful entrepreneurs are “everyday people that could live next door, trying to solve a problem they care deeply about”.

For Canva’s Melanie Perkins, debunking the myth of the typical tech founder was a key reason for making this documentary.

“People who have created big, world changing companies are just normal people. I think realising it’s possible is incredibly important,” she says.

Since launching three years ago, Canva has grown to more than 10 million users in 179 countries around the world, and is now available in 25 different languages. The graphic-design startup recently launched “Canva Print”, to expand their digital offerings to physical products.

The Vinomofo team, who also feature in The New Hustle, are similarly in the midst of a rapid expansion phase, boasting $60 million in annual revenue and launching in Hong Kong, US, UK and China over the next three years.

Even though Anear admits being in front of the camera was “uncomfortable”, he hopes the documentary will give audiences a “different perspective to what they read in the news about valuations and disruptions”.

“At the end of the day if it inspired someone to solve a problem in the world and become more aware of what the tech industry means to Australia then it would be worthwhile,” he says. 

The documentary will be available for purchase on the iTunes store next month.

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