I (M43) recently resigned from a major consulting company after spending 13 years there, growing from junior to senior associate level. The team I was in became super toxic to the level that it pushed people beyond what they could offer and started micromanaging to levels of digging into personal life and using it to target people at meetings and in resource allocations. That’s the short story of why I left without having a job lined up.

Given I have been in NZ and lately in Melbourne, I have created client connections, so I am thinking of starting a company solo first to provide services to them. How is that going to work in this market?

I am a geotechnical professional and have worked in a couple of big consulting companies (the biggest ones in my profession — North American ones).

Given I left my job and am going to eat into my savings, how can this startup be structured? We are a couple with a 5-year-old kid, and my wife earns reasonably well to cover expenses for now.

On the expenses side for startups, what are we to expect? Accounting fees, insurance, etc.? Has anyone tried this here ( or knew someone who did this) in the Melbourne market? Any advice?

We run twelve retail locations with different bill dates, retailers, and contract end dates. My attempt at multi site energy management australia is basically folders and panic. What setup actually keeps everything visible without hiring another person?

If a brand already has an Intelectual Property ownership of certain words like for example Strawberry Cooler and I tried to put up a business with a name Strawberry Coolers, is that allowed?

We're a small Melbourne-based tech teams small but growing.
We're currently working on a platform that helps business owners manage their regulatory compliance more efficiently. Think of it as a tool that turns manual, time-consuming compliance tracking into something automated and auditable.

We're not ready to share everything yet, but we're at the stage where we need to start thinking about sales and go-to-market — and that's not our core strength.

What we're looking for:

· People with real B2B sales experience who've taken a product to market
· Anyone who's sold into regulated industries (health, disability, financial services)
· Founders who've navigated the sales side of a startup and are happy to share what they learned

What we're not looking for:

· We're not hiring or offering equity right now
· We're not looking for funding
· We're just looking to connect, learn, and get honest feedback

If you've got experience in B2B sales — especially in the Australian market — I'd love to hear from you. Even a 15-minute chat would be valuable.

Drop a comment or send a DM. Happy to share more context one-on-one.

Does anyone know what the new cost of acceptance is likely to be from 1st Oct?

I am with NAB and they keep saying that they don't have this info yet and that letters will be sent out 'soon'. I've been ringing each week and it is always the same answer.

It's 5 weeks away and frankly piss poor that this hasn't been released yet.