Rob Castaneda grew up in Toongabie in Western Sydney, snuck into UTS to do computer science, and landed a help desk internship at a Silicon Valley company when he was 17. From that first role he never stopped moving forward. In 2001 he founded ServiceRocket in Sydney. In 2008, when everyone told him he was crazy, he moved the company to Palo Alto during the global financial crisis. Today ServiceRocket has around 240 people across 10 countries and Rob is an LP in Beaten Zone Venture Partners.

In this episode Peta Ellis sits down with Rob to unpack why it is genuinely easier to grow a tech company in the US than in Australia, why the founder has to be the one who moves, how a self-funded company still runs tight board accountability, and what he looks for in the next generation of talent.

GUEST LINKS

Rob Castaneda LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertcastaneda/

ServiceRocket: https://www.servicerocket.com/

Leadership Behaviours Substack: https://leadershipbehaviors.org/

Host Links:

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Production: Produced at The Podcast Boss podcast studio in Brisbane. thepodcastboss.com

Colonel Enrique Oti was employee number one at the Defense Innovation Unit - and he watched it nearly fail before it found its footing. In this episode, Sean Singleton and Peta Ellis sit down with Enrique, now Chief Strategy Officer at Second Front Systems, to trace a 23-year Air Force career that took him from special operations in Honduras and Afghanistan to two years as an Olmsted Scholar inside China's universities, to Silicon Valley at exactly the moment Washington and the tech sector had stopped talking to each other. Enrique shares what the original DIU got wrong, why every Ministry of Defence in the world is making the same mistake right now, why the difference between dual-use and defence tech matters more than most founders admit, and why Australian companies need to prove traction at home before showing up at the Pentagon door. He also breaks down what Second Front Systems is building to make AUKUS Pillar Two a real, frictionless reality across US, UK and Australian military networks.

🔗 GUEST LINKS

Enrique OtiLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enrique-oti

Second Front Systems: https://www.secondfront.com

Host Links:

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

Sean Singleton (Co-host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-singleton-b616292

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Produced at ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane

Ross Osborne is the Chief Engineer and Technical Director at SYPAQ Systems, a Melbourne-based company founded in 1992 that has grown from professional services and consulting in defence and government into one of Australia's most capable autonomous systems developers and manufacturers. Ross has been with SYPAQ for 16 years, joining after a graduate engineering program at BAE Systems where his focus was already on autonomous systems.

In this episode we trace the full arc of SYPAQ's most celebrated product: the Corvo PPDS, widely known as the cardboard drone. Ross explains how the concept came from a three-day sprint in 2018, prototyped on day one, flown on day two, bid written on day three. The idea was pitched at an Army Innovation Day, secured a contract, went through 10 months of engineering development, was shelved during COVID, and then, when the Ukraine conflict began in 2022, went from sitting on a shelf to full-rate production of 100 systems in five weeks.

We also discuss the Corvo X, SYPAQ's fixed-wing VTOL surveillance drone now delivered into Australian Army service through a formal acquisition program, a journey that took close to a decade. Ross explains the difference between running a rapid innovation program and navigating a full defence acquisition cycle, why both matter, and what makes SYPAQ's engineering culture different: nearly a quarter of the workforce are veterans, the team draws from automotive, medical, aerospace, and software backgrounds, and the engineering environment is built around multidisciplinary collaboration.

Ross shares his thinking on sovereign manufacturing, why the small premium to produce in Australia is worth it, how SYPAQ is now turning its decade of drone-building experience toward counter-drone technology, and why the 5,000 square metre Melbourne facility that felt large five years ago is already bursting at the seams.

🔗 GUEST LINKS

• Ross Osborne LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ross-osborne-sypaq/
• SYPAQ Systems: https://www.sypaq.com.au

Host Links:

• Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis
• BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos
• BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Recorded and produced at ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane

thepodcastboss.com

Judd McCann LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juddmccann/:

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Recorded and produced at The Podcast Boss podcast studio in Brisbane

• Robin Levison LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-levison-7b9b3b10/
• Ignition Equity Partners: https://www.ignitionpartners.net/

• Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis
• BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos
• BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Recorded and Produced at The Podcast Boss podcast studio in Brisbane

• What 21 years in the SASR teaches you about leadership, resilience, and taking action under uncertainty
• How two SAS soldiers founded iFly and built the highest-performing ASX IPO of 2013
• The legal battle that stopped iFly’s expansion and forced a pivot to virtual reality
• How Operator XR now serves around 95 US law enforcement agencies with immersive, data-driven tactical training
• Why counter-drone training in VR is now one of the fastest-growing use cases for the platform
• Keeping the engineering culture alive in Australia while scaling the business in the US

• Wayne Jones LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-jones-637aba58/
• xReality Group: https://xrgroup.com.au

• Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis/
• BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Produced at our ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane

• How passive radar works, and why not emitting a signal is the ultimate tactical advantage
• The MAVERICK family of systems, from soldier-portable units to the OmniGuard space domain awareness platform
• The decision to enter the US market and post a co-founder to Virginia
• How Silentium maintains a unified culture as it scales globally
• What the next two years look like as the company focuses on manufacturing scale and global market expansion

• James Palmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-palmer-sd/
• Silentium Defence: https://www.silentiumdefence.com.au

• Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis
• BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos
• BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Produced at our ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane

Martin Shaw, President & CEO of Wounded Heroes Australia, joins us in The Briefing Room with frontline stories from supporting veterans and Defence families facing crisis. We discuss the hidden challenge of veteran homelessness, programs like Exercise Stone Pillow and Horses 4 Heroes, and how Wounded Heroes built national trust without government funding. Martin reflects on balancing business experience with charity leadership, the role of innovation in veteran support, and what younger founders can do to create meaningful solutions for those who've served.

🔗 GUEST LINKS

• Martin Shaw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-shaw-94021052/
• Wounded Heroes Australia: https://www.woundedheroes.org.au/

Host Links

• • Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis
  • Jake Bostock (Cohost) https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake123456789/

• BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Produced by The Podcast boss