Welcome to Startup Life: Unscripted, a TNG Media newsletter as part of The Nudge Group, where we feature candid conversations with startup operators about their career journeys and experiences. If you received this email as a forward, you can read all our past interviews and subscribe right here.

From Marketing Maven to Superhero: An Inside Look at Strategy and Startups with Rachel Hopping

Welcome back to Startup Life: Unscripted! You're in for a treat today, as we sit down with Rachel Hopping, the Head of Strategy at Superhero, the investment platform that's been shaking things up in the finance world.

You think you've seen career zig-zags? Wait until you hear Rachel's story! She started in marketing, ventured into strategy, and even co-founded a couple of companies along the way. And now, she's at the helm of strategy at Superhero. Talk about wearing many hats!

Don't miss this conversation! Whether you're into strategy, startups, or just want to hear from someone who's truly passionate about what they do, this interview’s got something for you. Grab a coffee, settle in, and join us for this amazingly insightful chat with Rachel!

Key interview takeaways:

💼 We delved into Rachel's fascinating journey, full of twists and turns. Her path from marketing to strategy to entrepreneurship is a wild ride, and she's got insights galore.

💡 We talked about Superhero's exciting, varied day-to-day operations and how she keeps things running smoothly amid all the chaos. Trust us, her take on balancing the fast pace of a startup with strategic thinking is worth a read!

🎉 What's her favourite part of her job? Working on the unknown, helping to democratise investing, and the sheer joy of collaboration. She loves seeing products go live and the impact they have on people's financial futures.

🔭 We also chatted about the future. Open banking, customer empowerment, saving money – she's excited about all of it, and after hearing her take, you will be too.

🚀 And for those interested in a career like Rachel's, she's got advice: Keep learning, speak up about your goals, trust your colleagues, and never be afraid of new challenges. She's living proof that a non-traditional path can lead to some fantastic places.

Before we dive into our conversation with Rachel.

We've got some exciting news to share with you! Startup Life: Unscripted is now officially under the TNG Media umbrella, and we’re becoming part of an awesome family that includes some incredible media assets. Alongside our usual candid conversations with startup operators, you'll now have access to our startup video podcast Give It A Nudge, work-life balance publication Balance the Grind, blog series Founder Stories and the investor newsletter Nudge Connect. It's an exciting time for all of us, and we can't wait to see where this new chapter takes us. As we move forward, you might receive communications from these other fantastic resources. If they're not quite your cup of tea, no worries at all! You can simply unsubscribe, or shoot us an email.

Now back to our conversation with Rachel.

Hey Rachel, thanks for joining us today! So, you've worn quite a few hats, from strategic partnerships to heading strategy at Superhero, and you've even ventured into entrepreneurship with Unbroke and Autothink. Can you paint us a picture of your journey? How did you zig-zag through these roles and what was the compass that guided you?

I tend to follow two key guiding principles in life - the first is a desire to learn new things, and second is to have a positive impact on others’ lives.Superhero ticks both of these boxes for me, as when I joined I was just learning the ropes on how to invest and recognised there was a lack of accessible platforms and education at the time. Couple this with a desire to learn what it takes to build a startup from the ground up and I found the perfect opportunity to build my knowledge and (hopefully) grow my career.

I started out my career in marketing roles, and while I loved the focus on the end customer, I found myself being drawn further towards an interest in more commercial and product discussions, helping to shape the future of what Superhero will become. My passion for and knowledge of the product area as well as my ability to build strong relationships helped me to transition from marketing into strategy.

When it comes to entrepreneurship, I’d say these have also sprung from a desire to learn about new technologies, and to help people! I’ve really learned that the most finite resource is time, so it’s all about using that resource effectively, all while trying to maintain a healthy personal life.

Moving on to your current role at investment platform, Superhero. We're keen to get a peek into your world. What does an ordinary, or maybe not so ordinary, day look like for you there?

A day in the life starts with my 5:30am alarm, usually snoozed once. I then drag myself out of bed in the dark and I’m off to Virgin Active for a Grid Class or Boxing. Working out in the morning makes me feel like I’m prepared for the day ahead (and I don’t feel as bad if I happen to reach into the snack jar a few times during the day).

No day is truly started without a coffee, so it’s a large almond latte (LAL) from Capp on O’Connell St. They know my order, which makes me happy every day. I’m normally in the office working around 8am.

My role is very varied, and no day is the same, which is part of the reason I love it so much! One day I’ll be working on a big partnership, the next I’ll be implementing a new piece of software across our team to make our communication and task processing more efficient. I also act as project manager on most of our cross-functional projects, such as our recent country launch in New Zealand.

I’ll normally eat lunch at my desk, unless I’ve got lunch booked in with a friend. This then allows me to go for a 15 minute walk after I’ve eaten, which helps me avoid the post-lunch slump. I like to keep afternoons as meeting free as possible, so that I can follow up on any action items from the morning’s meetings and get prepared for the next day.

My work day usually finishes around 6pm, and then depending on the day it’s either home to cook dinner, out for drinks/dinner with friends or Tuesday night run club with Kings Cross Track Club. My night normally ends with catching up on my side hustle with a sugar free hot chocolate, or watching a Four Corners episode.

The life at a startup is notorious for its fast pace, and yet strategic planning requires careful and sometimes slower considerations. How do you juggle these seemingly opposite needs at Superhero?

Strong communication and constant reprioritisation. I have a weekly sync meeting with the product team where we check in on where any progress might be blocked, and we aim to either solve these issues as soon as possible or make a decision to move on if we’re stalled and there’s another valuable opportunity to progress. We have multiple streams of work running at the same time, one focused on quick wins and urgent priorities, and the other focused on long-term strategic focus areas.

As a startup that has only been in market for two and a half years, the current environment has brought the need for balancing the short and long-term to the forefront, as capital runways aren’t what they were and there has been a shift across the entire market to focus on sustainable revenue growth over user growth at any cost. This has meant we’ve needed to really define what our top two to three priorities are, and adjust timelines on anything that is not a ‘must-do’ in the next 12 months.

Global startup job opportunities:

• 👨‍💻 Engineering Manager

• 🖥️ Senior Front End Developer - Angular

• 🔧 Mid-Senior Software Engineer

While we're on the topic, you've co-founded Unbroke, a company that has a unique mission to help people build their future through property finance. How does that entrepreneurial experience spill over into your strategic decision-making at Superhero?

Starting my own business has given me a much greater appreciation for what it really takes to build a brand and business from scratch. Unbroke focuses on property finance, which is different to wealth-tech/share trading, but is also an area where Australians lack a lot of education and tools to support them to make the best decisions for their future.

Working on Unbroke has given me a broader perspective on financial education and consumer demands, as well as a new appreciation for the importance of time management. I’ve always managed my time well but I’ve really leaned into focusing on the highest value work and delegating or deprioritising things that are nice to have but aren’t fundamentally going to either drive our business forward commercially or add significant value to our customers (which are my two key decision making indicators).

What would you say is the most challenging aspect of your role as the Head of Strategy? And on the flip-side, what do you find most rewarding about it?

The most challenging part of the role is that everything we’re doing is uncharted territory. No matter how much research has been done, sometimes you really don’t know what the outcome of a decision will be until it’s out there in the market. Sometimes our big goals can seem far away, so it’s important to focus on smaller, achievable steps each day and to celebrate the milestones along the journey to avoid burnout or losing faith in our long-term strategy.

The most rewarding part of the role is the people I get to work with every day. I’m lucky to work with pretty much every person in Superhero and I really enjoy getting to know different people’s working styles and supporting them in their roles. I also love seeing a new product go live that our investors love, because I know we’re giving them the tools to build the financial future they see for themselves and their family.

With your wealth of experience across finance and tech startups, you're uniquely positioned to spot opportunities. Looking ahead, where do you think the most thrilling possibilities for innovation and growth are lurking in the coming years?

I’m really excited about the power of open banking and how it will change the way people engage with their money across platforms and products. This technology puts the power back into the hands of the customer, which will ideally lead to cost savings and a better experience for customers.

There are quite a few platforms using this tech to show Australians their net worth across banks and other financial products (e.g. super, investments,) I think the next phase that’s really exciting is when this can be used to show consumers how they could save on electricity, their home loan or measure and manage their carbon footprint based on the products and services they interact.

Lastly, for those who are interested in a similar career path as yours — particularly in strategy — what advice would you give them? Are there certain skills or experiences they should focus on?

Despite many others in strategy, I don’t come from a consulting background. While I’ve had to hone my slide-making skills in the absence of formal training, the quality that’s helped me most in my career is my hunger to learn everything I can about our product, and the industry more broadly (and adjacent industries), both locally and globally.

When it comes to navigating your career, my advice would be to not be afraid to talk to people about the career you’d like one day, because if nobody knows about your goals they won’t be able to help you get there! I’ve been fortunate to work closely and build a strong relationship with our founders at Superhero who’ve really supported my career development and allowed me to move into different roles within the organisation.

By building trust in my initial role, as well as pushing myself to take on projects in the area I wanted to develop in, what initially felt like a big shift eventually just felt like the natural next step.

Give It A Nudge

On our latest episode, Steve had a fascinating chat with Storytail's Co-Founder, Ryan Hayward, the challenges of product-market fit and effective storytelling. Ryan shares his entrepreneurial journey, from building a freelance business to the birth of Storytail. Check out the video and don’t forget to hit that subscribe button!

And that's a wrap! We hope you've enjoyed this edition as much as we loved putting it together. Stay curious, keep learning, and above all, enjoy the rollercoaster ride that is Startup Life. Catch you in the next one! 👋 Not subscribed yet? Do it here and don't miss out! Subscribe Now.