From hacking mainframes to building Haven (mental health) and now Indy, an AI co-pilot helping families navigate paediatric and developmental care, Jeff Quach shares a builder’s journey grounded in anthropology, trust, and real-world impact. We unpack when AI should support human care (not replace it), why guardrails matter, how to find the right co-founder, and the gritty reality of bootstrapping (“the desert walk”), plus practical tools and workflows you can use today.

Time stamps
00:00 – Intro: Jeff Quach, Indy & what this episode covers
05:53 – From Haven to Indy: why the pivot in mental health tech
06:00 – Anthropology in product: culture, reciprocity & trust
08:11 – Designing for trust: small choices that compound
10:17 – Where AI supports, not replaces, human care
12:09 – Problem space: parents, families & complex journeys
14:14 – Haven lessons: support across age stages and scope
17:27 – Early builder stories & shipping fast
21:15 – Founder persistence and the “desert walk”
24:04 – ICP clarity: serving parents first
26:17 – Finding the right co-founder (Antler signals & fit)
31:33 – Parent outcomes: progress they can see
35:00 – Mental health models: what AI can/can’t solve
37:02 – Inside Indy: product shape & value moments
41:40 – Workflow stack: Notion (AI), ops, cadence
44:53 – Safety & guardrails: avoiding overreach
49:30 – Tools recap: Claude, Notion AI, practical tips
51:30 – Closing: key takeaways & what’s next

What you’ll learn
- Applying anthropology to product: cultural relativism, reciprocity & trust → better UX and retention
- The limits of “self-solving” mental health; designing tech that restores human-to-human connection
- Why Jeff wound down Haven and built Indy with safety guardrails and a parent-first journey
- Co-founder fit via Antler: complementary skills, oxygen for the journey, signals that you’re on the right path
- Hyper-personalisation that isn’t creepy: small preference shifts that build long-term trust
- Tools & stack: Notion + Notion AI, Claude (Code), rapid prototyping, lightweight agents
- Career & founder advice: go wide, ship often, persist, and avoid “big-name” co-founder traps

About Jeff
Product and AI leader with roots in financial services and SafetyCulture, a background in social anthropology, and founder/operator across Haven (mental health) and Indy (AI for parents). Jeff’s lens: build value where people feel it daily—then earn trust with clear trade-offs and smart guardrails.

Who this episode is for
Founders and PMs shipping AI into health, family & education contexts
UX/CX leaders chasing evidence-backed trust and adoption
Builders validating AI products without losing the human

Episode links:
Check out the Indi App: https://projectindi.com/
Check out Jeff Quach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyquach/

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

Can AI help understand our emotional state? Nicole Gibson, founder of Love Out Loud and co-founder of inTruth, shares how a recovery journey became a product mission, and how she’s using AI in mental health to scale evidence-based impact, leadership, and a love-led culture.

Watch for:
From anorexia recovery to national advocate → AI product leader
The origin of Love Out Loud and community design that changes behaviour
inTruth: AI ethics, data consent, and measurable outcomes in mental health
Product mindset for founders: ICP clarity, tight feedback loops, and validation before code
Language, rituals, and narratives that convert without sensationalising trauma
Practical advice for young leaders on purpose, pressure, and burnout

🎙 Guest: Nicole Gibson — founder, author, former National Mental Health Commissioner; Love Out Loud, inTruth

👥 Hosts: Chris & Mark — Digital Nexus Podcast (Australia)

👉 Subscribe for founder stories from Australia’s AI ecosystem
👉 Share this with someone building in health, education, or social impact

Chapters

00:00 From Rogue & Rouge to Love Out Loud, Nicole’s Mission
05:30 Overcoming Anorexia: Nicole’s Turning Point
10:59 Building Love Out Loud: From Grassroots to Movement
16:28 Healing Mental Health: Shame, Support, Recovery
21:56 Inside Eating Disorder Recovery: What Actually Helps
27:27 Trauma, Belonging & Community Healing
32:57 The Philosophy of Love Out Loud (Connection over Fear)
38:26 inTruth by Nicole Gibson, Building a Trust Layer
43:55 Compassion in Practice: Everyday Mental Health Tools
49:25 inTruth in Action: Authenticity, Privacy & Safety
54:55 Advice to Young Women: Finding Your Voice
1:00:24 Founder Journey: Building Movements, Not Just Startups

Links & Mentions

Nicole Gibson — Love Out Loud / inTruth https://intruth.io/

Digital Nexus Podcast — Chris & Mark (Australia) https://www.digitalnexuspodcast.com/

Tools & topics: AI for mental health, ethical AI, customer validation, product mindset

Why this matters
If you’re a founder, designer, clinician, or policy maker, this episode is a practical blueprint for building ethical AI in mental health with real-world outcomes — from research and validation to community design and leadership.

Hashtags

#AI #MentalHealth #NicoleGibson #inTruth #LoveOutLoud #ProductMindset #EthicalAI #AustralianStartups #DigitalNexusPodcast

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

Want clearer, more consistent AI outputs? In this episode, we break down three prompting skills that help founders, PMs, and UX leads go from idea → clickable MVP fast—using ChatGPT and Claude. Guest Bastian Epskamp shares his 3-phase system (prepare → implement → learn), how to ship prototypes stupid fast with V0/vibe-coding, and a case study on building Auction Buddy (AI for buyer-side property decisions).

What you’ll learn

The 3 skills: framing, constraint design, and iterative prompting (ChatGPT & Claude).
Prompt templates that work: turn vague asks into structured tasks for reliable outputs.
Speed to MVP: V0/vibe-coding, docs-as-leverage, tight feedback loops.
Real product examples: how “Auction Buddy” scores inspections, plans bids, and does live auction maths.
Team craft: pair human creativity with AI to reduce cycles and increase signal.

Who this helps: Founders, product managers, and UX leads shipping LLM apps, agentic workflows, internal knowledge assistants, and customer-facing AI features.

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro — Meet Bastian (BE Innovations) & the “product lens”
03:25 Why AI is a product superpower
05:40 Early builds: Dreamweaver sites, custom PCs, first “maker” wins
08:45 Research & prompting in practice (talk to AI like a teammate)
16:05 Teams, mistakes, and building with intent
19:30 Exit story → starting a strategy/innovation lab
21:00 Monetisation & prioritisation: pick the sharpest pain points
24:30 AI = remove repetition, keep judgment (why experience still matters)
29:10 Aussie ecosystem: capital cycles, resilience, and pivots
31:00 Upskilling across functions (seeing the whole system)
35:30 Prompt frameworks that work (structure, constraints, examples)
38:20 Rapid loop: Prepare → Execute → Learn
39:10 Property tools: “Auction Buddy” & decision support for buyers

👍 If this helped, like, subscribe, and share with a builder who needs faster MVPs.

#ChatGPT #Claude #PromptEngineering #AIProduct #MVP #LLM #Prototyping #VibeCoding #Startups #UX

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

Build Real AI Products (Fast): Product Manager to Community Builder with Kurt Yang (Fintech & EdTech, RAG, Embedded Finance)

From banker to PM to community catalyst, Kurt Yang shares how non-engineers are shipping functional AI prototypes, validating with customers, and turning meetups into massive and strong ecosystems.

Chapters:
4:17 – Community lessons for PMs
8:34 – De-risking AI with stakeholders
12:50 – Tooling spotlight: Lovable in practice
17:07 – Prototyping workflows that scale
21:24 – Embedded finance & risk-based pricing
25:41 – RAG in fintech/edtech (what works)
29:57 – Stack, Supabase, and next steps

What you’ll learn

From frustration to community: how Kurt spun up GenAI for Fintech & EdTech and grew it to ~800 members.

Lean PM, real signals: why working, functional prototypes beat pretty mockups—and how to run smoke tests with real users.

Tooling that compounds: using Lovable + Supabase (+ ChatGPT) to ship usable prototypes you can measure.

RAG, demystified: practical walkthroughs and when retrieval-augmented generation actually reduces hallucinations.

Fintech shift: embedded finance + dynamic risk-based pricing and alternative credit scoring to hyper-personalised offers.

Enterprise adoption: winning over senior stakeholders in regulated industries (trust, governance, records).

Founder traps to avoid: solution-first bias, over-scoping; how to pick a lower-risk wedge to earn trust and revenue.

Mindset: “Don’t just think, start.” Momentum over perfection.

About Digital Nexus

A founder-led podcast where Australia’s AI builders go beyond the hype with real workflows, decisions, and lessons from shipping. Hosted by Mark Monfort & Chris Sinclair.

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

Michelle Gilmore (CEO & Co-founder, Juno) built a digital twin of herself to scale her business. Juno conducts high-quality, qualitative interviews—turning Michelle's 20+ years, and 10,000+ research projects into an AI “listening engine.” We dive into how Juno runs real conversations at scale, why expertise-in-the-loop beats checkbox surveys, and how a digital twin lets a CEO focus on strategy while the AI handles the heavy lifting.

Guest & company:
Michelle Gilmore, CEO & Co-founder, Juno
Juno is an AI research platform that runs real interviews on your behalf

You’ll learn:
What Juno actually does (and how it differs from “conversational surveys”)
Why Michelle raised $2.8M from Blackbird Ventures to build a global “listening engine”
How she captured her tacit expertise to train agents (principles, role-plays, competencies)
Fear vs. reality: AI won’t replace her, it amplifies and scales her impact
When AI is a feature vs. a product and why the answer is “it depends”

Why this matters:
Most teams still send surveys and get thin, leading data. Juno probes, follows up, and helps people articulate what they actually think and feel, so product and research teams can act with confidence.

Key moments (chapters):
00:00 Cold open & why “clone the CEO”
06:00 From researcher to founder: Michelle’s path to Juno
12:00 What Juno actually does (beyond surveys)
18:00 Building the Digital Twin CEO: capturing tacit expertise
24:00 Co-CEO in practice: decisions, prioritisation, removing the founder bottleneck
33:00 Fear vs reality: risks, adoption, and what leaders get wrong about AI
38:00 Scaling quality without burnout: ops, team, and metrics
42:00 Founder playbook: what to delegate first + what’s next for Juno

👋 New here? Subscribe for weekly founder and industry leader deep-dives on AI and product, a new episode every Tuesday!

🔔 Hit the bell so you don’t miss the next founder story.

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

From IBM strategist to startup founder, Serena Lam is building Fuzzy AI to reshape B2B sales with hyper-personalized outreach. In this candid conversation, she shares her founder journey, lessons from building in AI, and where sales tech is heading next.

👉 Expect practical founder advice, the realities of building with limited resources, and insights into how design thinking and AI workflows are changing the game.

⏱️ Chapter Timestamps

0:00 – Intro & why Serena flew budget class from Singapore
4:33 – How IBM shaped Serena’s mindset as a founder
8:32 – First startups, painful failures & losing money early
13:02 – The hardest part: finding (and keeping) the right tech co-founder
17:48 – Inside Fuzzy AI: turning content & trust into 5x higher conversions
22:01 – Killing the “spam cannon” & making outreach human again
26:41 – Why Serena prototypes in Figma before writing a single line of code
31:38 – AI tools Serena swears by (Claude, Perplexity, Bolt & more)
35:54 – Which jobs AI will replace… and which remain uniquely human
40:30 – The future of sales: cultural nuance, agentic AI & trust-based buying

🔑 Key Takeaways

🎯 Startups succeed when founders go all-in — half measures don’t work.

🤖 AI isn’t just automation — it’s strategy amplification when applied right.

🛠️ Design thinking + scrappy prototyping can save you months of wasted work.

💡 The future of sales = humans handling trust + negotiation, AI doing the grind.

💡 Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe for more AI founder stories & weekly Digital Nexus tech breakdowns!

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

In this episode of Digital Nexus, we sit down with Sha-maybe Chan, Co-founder of Friyay and Wakey Wakey Sales, to unpack how AI is reshaping startups, SMEs, and big business in Australia.

We cover:

🚀 How startups can now build products without a tech co-founder
📱 The story behind Wakey Wakey, an AI SMS sales assistant helping small businesses scale
🏦 Why big corporates are finally moving past endless POCs and into real AI adoption
🛠️ The rise of agentic workflows vs. AI agents — and what that means for service design
💡 How founders can “build while flying” with today’s AI tools (Bolt, Cursor, Windsurf, Midjourney, etc.)
🧠 The ethical, cultural, and human challenges of AI adoption — from junior job pathways to mental health chatbots

00:00 Intro
05:30 Backgrounds & early career
08:30 Small business growth: SMS vs email; 'product‑a‑month'
12:30 The Wakey story
16:30 Enterprises: from POCs to compliant rollouts
19:30 Where the pain is: manual checks & team ops
23:30 Service design: account UX, cancel flows, blueprints
29:00 Risk, value, and choosing bets
34:00 Automation & shipping fast (prompts, traction)
37:30 Vibe coding tools → personal app; VC outlook
42:30 Wrap‑up + what’s next

Links:
Friyay - https://www.friyay.ai/
Sha-Maybe linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamaynechan/

Podcast - https://www.digitalnexuspodcast.com/

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

In Episode 32 of Digital Nexus, we go from the bush to the boardroom. Kev the Yowie returns as we unpack the latest in AI trends, Google’s Gemini V3, OpenAI’s new business features, and Perplexity’s research mode. We dive into AI adoption in Australia, explore how Perplexity outperforms in real-world research comparison tests, and showcase our entry into the world’s largest AI hackathon. Plus, we reveal how ambient agents and agentic workflows are quietly reshaping knowledge work and how businesses can futureproof their operations.

🛠 Built with Bolt
🚀 Sponsored by FEX Global
🎯 Stay till the end for a side-by-side showdown of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity.

⏱️ Chapter Timestamps
00:00 – Kev the Yowie returns + Intro banter + AI work we've been up to
12:33 - Sike demo update
13:52 – AI adoption in Australia: Productivity Commission report
17:28 – AFR AI Awards + Aussie winners
18:11 – Andrej Karpathy’s GPT model breakdown
21:00 – Mary Meeker’s return with 340-page AI megareport
24:05 – AI World’s Fair & newsletter automation workflows
33:12 - Mistral Code
37:05 – More OpenAI news: Memory upgrades for free users
39:20 - ChatGPT connectors
46:20 - Bolt World's largest hackathon and discussion of our joint project
52:00 - Comparison Deep dive: Perplexity vs ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude

Show links:
Aus Gov releasing AI Adoption Tracker - https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/ai-adoption-tracker
Karpathy explainers on current state of LLMs - https://x.com/karpathy/status/1929597620969951434
AFR AI Summit Articles- https://www.afr.com/afrlive/ai-summit
Mary Meeker report - 340 page - https://www.bondcap.com/report/tai/
Mistral Code client - https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/04/mistral-releases-a-vibe-coding-client-mistral-code/
Anthropic AI writing it’s own blog articles with human oversight - https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/03/anthropics-ai-is-writing-its-own-blog-with-human-oversight/
Chat GPT updates for plus users - https://www.financialexpress.com/life/technology-openai-upgrades-chatgpt-for-free-and-plus-users-check-out-new-features-you-can-enjoy-3868505/
OpenAI introduces new business features - https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/04/chatgpt-introduces-meeting-recording-and-connectors-for-google-drive-box-and-more/

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus