{"id":42012,"date":"2023-10-20T15:18:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/rock-bottom-how-dean-mcevoy-got-through-his-darkest-days-to-build-a-startup-that-sold-for-40-million-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:18:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:18:05","slug":"rock-bottom-how-dean-mcevoy-got-through-his-darkest-days-to-build-a-startup-that-sold-for-40-million-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/rock-bottom-how-dean-mcevoy-got-through-his-darkest-days-to-build-a-startup-that-sold-for-40-million-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock bottom: How Dean McEvoy got through his darkest days to build a startup that sold for $40 million – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prominent Australian entrepreneur Dean McEvoy remembers the moment he hit rock bottom well.<\/p>\n

He got a call from his dad saying his grandfather had passed away. Distraught, McEvoy quickly jumped on a plane, but realised he couldn\u2019t afford a return trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got home sad that my grandfather had passed and realising I was broke,\u201d McEvoy says in a recent AMA run by Blackbird Ventures.<\/p>\n

Booking Angel, the startup that founder was working on at the time had also just \u201cfailed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven worse, a deal I had been working on for a year actually came through but I didn\u2019t have a cent to my name to actually implement it,\u201d McEvoy says.<\/p>\n

This was when McEvoy hit rock bottom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was sitting on a beach in the south coast at night not knowing what I was going to do,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t had a job in six years, didn\u2019t know what I was good at and had to move back in with my parents at 32.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was his partner at the time that gave McEvoy a \u201clittle nudge\u201d in the direction that brought him out of this rut.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe kicked me in the butt and told me to stop feeling sorry for myself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat starts the momentum you need to get moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, he visited Pollenizer and discussed implementing the deal that had just closed, and moved into a friend\u2019s spare room. Things were starting to pick up.<\/p>\n

Soon after, McEvoy began chatting to Phil Morle about launching online coupons startup Spreets.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Spreets would be sold to Yahoo7 for $40 million, one of the biggest Australian tech deals of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt taught me no matter how much it hurts getting punched in the face for the 20th time, just get up \u2013 no excuses,\u201d McEvoy says.<\/p>\n

After the hugely successful exit, the serial entrepreneur has now turned to a new and lofty goal: to transform Sydney into one of the top 10 tech ecosystems in the world.<\/p>\n

To do this he helped launch TechSydney, a tech supergroup of sorts featuring some of the biggest names in startups.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about giving back to the community and helping to build a better quality of companies, McEvoy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have suffered through enormous difficulties as an entrepreneur since I launched my first business in 2001,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just human nature to not let others who walk behind you make those same mistakes. TechSydney is an extension of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s helping entrepreneurs grow their companies and avoid the pitfalls.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Q&A session, McEvoy also dished out a number of useful lessons and takeaways for other founders and entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

The importance of diversity<\/h3>\n

The launch of TechSydney was somewhat overshadowed by its stark lack of gender diversity<\/a>, with only seven of its initial members being women.<\/p>\n

But McEvoy says he learnt a valuable lesson from the criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learnt my lesson that you have to proactively portray an inviting and inclusive environment so women feel comfortable participating,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t planned but the backlash was in a way good. The gentle kick in the butt I needed to make sure I think about how things are perceived in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that he has seen first-hand the importance of diversity in startups and the tech world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason that drives me to improve it the most is it will produce better companies with bigger impact if we get it right,\u201d McEvoy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have seen in my own company when you get different perspectives on problems you get better results. There is also a certain kind of energy you get with a balanced gender group in a room.\u201d<\/p>\n

How to jump into the startup world<\/h3>\n

McEvoy says there is some required reading for hopeful startup founders, including the Lean Startup, fi.co and Sam Altman\u2019s writing. But for the most part, you can only learn by doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning about startups is like learning to dance,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can read about it, you can get strong and flexible but eventually you\u2019ve gotta put the music on and startup moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes Sydney\u2019s ecosystem special<\/h3>\n

With a mission to put Sydney\u2019s startup ecosystem on the world stage, he says there\u2019s one big advantage: \u201cThe resilience of our founders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t had the history of $1 million seed rounds to build an MVP \u2013 we have to save up, borrow, beg and scrape our MVPs together,\u201d McEvoy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy analogy is always that Australia for the last 10 years has been like trying to grow a plant in a dark cupboard. Many don\u2019t try, many die, but those that survive have evolved to by much more resourceful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we have a great VC industry, when we have support like Tech Sydney and at a time when global markets are capitulating I think Australian startups are going to outshine the rest of the world in no time. It\u2019s going to be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, <\/em>LinkedIn <\/em>and <\/em>SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prominent Australian entrepreneur Dean McEvoy remembers the moment he hit rock bottom well. He got a call from his dad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}