Who says you can’t Build a Global Fintech Business from Australia?

I feel so privileged to be able to work every day with founders like Alistair Bentley, who quit his job as a naval engineer working on offshore oil rigs off the coast of Western Australia, and drove his car 2,044 miles (3,290 km) across the continent to join our startup accelerator so that he could follow his dream of helping normal people invest more sensibly in the stock market.

Once he arrived in Sydney he slept in his car for 4 months while he got his business off the ground…

Once he arrived in Sydney he slept in his car for 4 months while he got his business off the ground because he wanted to put every cent of the capital we had invested into growing his business, Simply Wall St. He now has 7 awesome employees, over 85,000 users in 170 countries and last year acquired his biggest US competitor.

In his ‘spare time’ he mentors many of our other founders and co-organises the Sydney Startup Weekend. Oh, and did I forget to say, he is also a semi-pro windsurfer and managed to retain his title as the Australian Windsurf freestyle champion for three consecutive years while he was building his business.

Let me know (or Like this post) if you’d like to hear more stories about inspiring Australian entrepreneurs and if you have your own stories please share them in the comments. We need to be better at celebrating the dreamers, the risk takers, the believers and change makers.

Originally published at h2blogspot.wordpress.com on February 22, 2017.