Perspective X with Pauline Fetaui cover art

Perspective X with Pauline Fetaui

Perspective X with Pauline Fetaui

Written by: Day One®
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Join host Pauline Fetaui as she chats with entrepreneurs and leading innovators about the intersection of personal motivation and excellence. They’ll share their stories on driving change, taking action and living intentionally. Each episode we dive deep into the profound impact of choices and the ripple effect of decision-making in shaping life, business and society. Perspective X is part of Day One. Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often. To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows. Tune in as Pauline Fetaui dives deep with entrepreneurs and innovators, exploring the power of personal motivation and intentional action. Discover the ripple effect of choices that shape life, business, and society. Listen now!Day One® is a registered trademark of W2D1 Media Pty Ltd. Economics Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychology Psychology & Mental Health
Episodes
  • From a Secondhand Desk to a $120M Exit: Mark Samlal's Story

    From a Secondhand Desk to a $120M Exit: Mark Samlal's Story
    Jul 15 2026

    Mark Samlal grew up as one of the only Indian families in a small Perth township, went on to co-found a payroll company from a secondhand desk in Singapore with his wife Samantha, and eventually listed it on the ASX as PayGroup. In 2022 Deel acquired the business in an all-cash deal worth $120M at a 143% premium to market. In this conversation Mark talks about the racism he faced growing up, the "4 or out the door" sales mentality that shaped his early career, what it actually feels like to run a public company, and why he's stayed on at Deel almost four years after the acquisition. He also opens up about the guilt of building a business while raising three daughters, and the pull he's feeling to reconnect with his roots in Fiji and India.

    Timestamps

    00:00 – Cold open: race, accountability, and the "4 or out the door" origin story

    01:55 – Younger Mark: born in Fiji, his father's journey from teacher to social worker

    09:23 – University, meeting Samantha, and the early grind in real estate

    15:56 – Into telecom, then payroll software — learning on the job

    21:43 – Meeting mentor Phil Cave and turning around Lendlease Employer Services

    32:40 – Racism growing up and being "the only brown person in the room"

    37:59 – The move to Singapore and building the Sharks Basketball community

    43:13 – Running multiple businesses at once and bootstrapping PayAsia with Samantha

    51:25 – Skipping VC/PE, and what it's really like leading a public company

    1:05:36 – COVID, 3 acquisitions, and the road to the Deel deal

    1:09:52 – The Deel acquisition: $120M all-cash, 143% premium

    1:13:34 – Culture shock joining Deel, AI's impact on HR/payroll, and why he's stayed

    1:27:03 – Raising 3 daughters, fatherhood, and business regrets

    1:38:34 – The Pingyao story, undervaluing Asian entrepreneurs, and where he's headed next

    Sponsors:Perspective X is supported by our wonderful sponsors:

    Deel:

    Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders.

    It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast.

    Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone

    Perspective X is part of Day One.Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often.

    To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Deel x PX_Script 1

    Deel x PX_Script 2
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    1 hr and 53 mins
  • Taryn Williams: Building and Exiting 6 Companies and the Cost No One Talks About, where humans sit in the creator economy and AI Slop

    Taryn Williams: Building and Exiting 6 Companies and the Cost No One Talks About, where humans sit in the creator economy and AI Slop
    Jul 2 2026

    Taryn Williams started her first company, Wink Models, at 21 with $30,000 and no roadmap. She didn't stop there. Over the next two decades she built and ran a string of ventures, the talent marketplace The Right Fit (backed by Airtree, scaled to 17,000 talent and 11,000 clients across APAC), The Influencers Agency, the contra-gifting platform #Gifted, the B2B talent business Notable, and Online Model Academy, exiting two of them to international acquirers in 2023. Today she sits across boards, invests as an angel, and advises organisations on AI transformation with Think & Grow.

    In this episode Pauline sits down with Taryn for an honest conversation about what it actually costs to build like this: why and how she runs multiple companies at once, why she loves the 0-to-2-year stage and does not want to be the CEO, and the quieter things founders rarely say out loud, the toll on her relationships and health, freezing her eggs at 35 and what she wishes she'd known about fertility, and the mentor question she still works through every day: when is enough, enough? Plus sharp takes on AI, the creator economy, "AI slop", and whether AI will replace human models.

    Time Stamps

    00:00 - Cold open: "I was 21 when I started Wink"

    01:20 - Welcome — meeting Taryn at South Start, and the snapshot of a serial founder

    04:08 - Scouted at 15: modelling as an accidental business education

    06:21 - Starting Wink Models at 21 — fixing a broken, fragmented industry

    09:04 - Building the first tech product (and the trap of gold-plating instead of an MVP)

    12:21 - Launching The Right Fit and raising capital from Airtree

    17:56 - How big Wink and The Right Fit actually grew

    19:34 - Running multiple companies at once — and stepping fully out of Wink

    22:13 - #Gifted, Notable and Online Model Academy: "every year, birth a new child"

    28:27 - Why it isn't "the Taryn Williams show"

    31:37 - The 2023 exits: running a formal process and the transition

    38:56 - The real cost: relationships, health and never being fully switched off

    43:27 - Fertility, freezing eggs at 35, and what no one tells you early enough

    50:15 - From operator to board chair — breaking the habit of being all-in

    54:17 - Why every founder should understand governance (the AICD course)

    56:28 - In the investor seat: what Taryn backs and the founders she looks for

    59:33 - Advising on AI transformation with Think & Grow

    64:56 - AI, creators and the "AI slop" problem

    69:07 - Will AI models replace human talent in advertising?

    73:32 - Dating, connection and AI: why we've lost the resilience for friction

    80:45 - Tying self-worth to success — the question she still works through

    85:16 - One thing she knows to be true that the world hasn't caught up on yet

    87:36 - Close

    Links

    Wink Models — https://www.winkmodels.com.au

    Airtree Ventures — https://www.airtree.vc

    Think & Grow — https://www.thinkandgrow.com

    Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) — https://www.aicd.com.au

    Perspective X is produced by Day One — the podcast network for founders, operators and investors — https://www.dayone.fm

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Deel x PX_Script 2

    Deel x PX_Script 1

    Day One sting
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    1 hr and 29 mins
  • She Lost the Company She Built — Not Herself: Yas Grigaliunas (Part 2)

    She Lost the Company She Built — Not Herself: Yas Grigaliunas (Part 2)
    Jun 18 2026
    She raised $4 million just before Christmas, moved out of her marital home inside sixty days, and came back from a two-week break to find an interim CEO appointed and the doors of her own company closed to her. In Part 2 of her Perspective X conversation with Pauline Fetaui, Yas Grigaliunas tells the part founders almost never say out loud: nine months locked out of World's Biggest Garage Sale, watching the brand she built be steered somewhere she would never have taken it.Yas walks through the pattern that ran underneath the whole journey — high highs and low lows landing on top of each other. The Lord Mayor's award the same week her mum died. The $4 million raise the same month as her divorce. And then "prove your value, Yas" — sell to customers from home, no access to the product, no hand in the brand, while a million dollars of the raise went on things she would never have signed off.She is unsparing but never vengeful about the board and advisers who did it. Two truths can be true at once, she says: they believed they were giving her space to manage a hard year; what it actually was, was a displacement. It took a founder friend shoving a lawyer's number at her in a bar to get her back inside the company she still majority-owned.The numbers tell the rest. A $200,000 Ignite Ideas grant ten days before liquidation. A $20-odd million large global retailer partnership ready to sign. A $6,000 bank balance the month after half a million in revenue. Yas unpacks the over-engineered structure, the siloed executives, the curated board papers, and the moment the safe-harbour report from BDO finally backed what she had been saying all along.What she does with the ending is the lesson. She rang every investor by phone before the liquidation notice went public. She traded through so staff got their final pay. She stayed thirty days after the liquidator was appointed to hand back a spotless warehouse — because, as her liquidator put it, the best stay and the worst disappear.There is also the human spine of it: building a team around neurodiverse people and "the cracks you can't see", the scars she is not ashamed of, and her daughters watching her lose everything and land — without, in their eyes, any effort — back at Videopro, the company she helped build twenty years ago. "I lost my company," she says, "but I didn't lose myself."Yas Grigaliunas is the founder of World's Biggest Garage Sale and Circonomy, a pioneer of Australia's circular economy who raised $4 million and partnered with a large domestic retailer before the company went into liquidation in 2024. She is now part of the leadership team at Videopro.Links:- Day One: https://dayone.fm- Join the Day One newsletter: https://dayone.fm/newsletter- Videopro: https://www.videopro.com.au- Deel (sponsor): https://www.deel.com/dayoneIf it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. This is Perspective X.Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders. It's why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast. Visit https://www.deel.com/dayoneEpisode SummaryPart 2 of Yas Grigaliunas on Perspective X is the harder chapter: the $4 million raise, the divorce, and nine months locked out of the company she founded. She walks through the liquidation of World's Biggest Garage Sale — the large global retailer deal, the grant, the $6,000 bank balance — and how she led the ending with integrity, then landed back at Videopro. She lost the company. She did not lose herself.Time Stamps00:00 - The part no one tells00:51 - Building a team around neurodiversity08:49 - Leading the narrative into liquidation10:43 - High highs, low lows: the pattern12:03 - Raised $4M, then locked out14:10 - "Prove your value": nine months outside19:43 - When founders take the fall in silence21:19 - Two truths about the board28:13 - The large global retailer deal and the $6,000 call38:29 - Closing the company with integrity47:40 - Lessons for founders raising capital55:21 - Landing back at Videopro66:53 - What the world hasn't caught up onAbout the hostPauline Fetaui hosts Perspective X, drawing out the founder stories that usually stay hidden — the cost, the conviction, and the decisions made under real pressure.About Day One NetworkPerspective X is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators and investors. To learn more, join our newsletter (https://dayone.fm/newsletter) to be notified of new and upcoming shows. Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often.Follow our socialsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/dayonefm/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dayone.fm/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dayone.fmMentioned in this episode:Deel x PX_Script 1Day One stingDeel x PX_Script 2
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    1 hr and 16 mins
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