Timing, leadership & high performance with Mark Woodland (CEO - Kismet) | Startup Playbook Ep173

My guest for Episode 173 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Mark Woodland, the Co-founder & CEO of Kismet.
Mark has had a fascinating journey to date.
He joined the military to fulfil his brothers dreams before leaving to do “admin” for his mums childcare business.
That experience led him to starting Xplor education, a childcare management platform that he grew from $0 to $40M ARR in 5 years before eventually being acquired by Advent International.
Mark is now back with his next company, Kismet Healthcare to reduce the barriers to access disability and healthcare services - a company that he initially had the idea for and pitched way back in 2010 before being laughed out of the room because as Mark puts it, it was a different generation back then!
Fast forward to today and Kismet raised a $4M pre-seed round led by AirTree Ventures in early 2023 and recently closed a Series A funding round after seeing exceptional growth for the company.
In this interview we covered a range of topics including:
- Mark’s journey from the Australian Army and running childcare centres to building Xplor which was acquired by private equity
- Why his retirement after his exit only lasted 2 weeks before he started his new venture Kismet
- Leadership principles and how he builds and inspires high performing teams
- How to get crystal clear on a product vision and avoid short term distractions
& much more!
Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co
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