Hi divas 🤍

I’m writing this from Shanghai.

I flew out on Saturday with Georgia to spend a week walking stores and going behind the scenes of the full consumer lifecyle, which is the part of my job I would do for free. Ten hours a day on foot, looking at how things are merchandised and priced and who is actually buying.

Before anyone pictures glamour: we were not at the pointy end of the plane. We’re middle seats on China Eastern becasue I couldn’t work out seat selection on the app. Add business class to the vision board.

I got one event in before I left: coffee, matcha and croissants on the Gold Coast on Tuesday morning hosted by Georgia. Then, in the days I was packing, this community ran three more without me. Twenty in London with Caitlin, Emma and Jess. Fifteen in Adelaide with Cathy. Another twenty at the first Business Book Club in Sydney with Sylvie, on a night I had to pull out of because I was eyeballs deep in a board pack.

I wasn’t in a single one of those rooms. The girls just went ahead anyway.

Last week I wrote about the shoes being too small and not knowing which pair comes next. Here’s the part nobody tells you: some of the transition isn’t about becoming a bigger version of yourself. Some of it is about becoming less necessary.

And that’s harder than it sounds, because being needed feels exactly like being valuable. Every time someone asks a question only you can answer, it’s a small hit of proof that you matter. Designing yourself out of that is the least instinctive thing you will ever do, and it’s the only way anything you build survives your own calendar.

So if you’re the bottleneck in your own business right now, and most of us are somewhere: what’s the one thing you’d have to teach someone this month to stop being the person who has to be in the room?

Caitlin, Emma, Jess, Georgia, Cathy, Sylvie. You didn't cover for me. You made me optional, which is the nicest thing anyone has done for me this year and also the entire point.

Two things before you scroll.

The MOODY Yap Challenge is happening in September. Thirty days of showing up, a virtual workshop to kick it off, and daily prompts dropped in the chat so you actually film something. The part that makes it ours rather than a rerun of someone else’s: we audit each other’s accounts and give real notes, instead of doing it alone in the dark. Built with Ari and Britt, invented on the fly, because MOODY girls get shit done. Join the channel →

And tell me what you want to know about China. I’m in stores here all week with a notebook and I’m thrilled to go digging on your behalf. What do you actually want reported back? How they merchandise beauty, what’s on shelf that isn’t here yet, what live selling really looks like, how much of it is already agentic. Reply to this and I’ll bring back whatever you ask for.

02 - THE READ

Last week I hosted a room on the future of retail, consumer behaviour and commerce with McKinsey, Macquarie and Amazon Ads. Firms, not names. Here’s what I walked out with.

The consumers are ahead and the businesses are behind. Roughly a quarter of consumers already use AI search to discover products. Fewer than one in twenty companies has a real agentic commerce strategy. That is the widest gap between customer behaviour and business readiness I have seen, and gaps like that close violently, not gently.

Three separate things get called agentic commerce, and conflating them is why most strategies go nowhere. Inbound is discovery: ChatGPT and Gemini as the front door, so when someone asks for the best moisturiser for her skin, are you in the answer or invisible? On-site is the assistant on your own property. Outbound is the autonomous agent shopping across other people’s sites for your customer.

“You must be part of the answer.”

That was the line of the day, and it is the entire inbound strategy in six words.

But it is early, and one number tells you how early. When OpenAI opened up shopping, roughly three thousand retailers were listed. Eight actually transacted through it. Three thousand to eight. → Being listed is not being live. If you are counting yourself as agent-ready because you appear somewhere, check whether anything has ever actually been bought.

The line I’ve repeated every day since: agents don’t browse pages, they query data. If your product information isn’t rich, structured and accessible, you’re not badly ranked. You’re absent. Most brands are still optimising a page a machine will never look at.

The Australian numbers finally exist. CBA has banked $200 million in AI benefit and expects it to double. Walmart is holding headcount flat at 2.1 million for three years and retraining everyone instead of cutting. Set that against Qantas, Coles and Woolworths all announcing reductions this year and you have two opposite bets on one technology. → The investor question isn’t whether you use AI. It’s whether the market believes your story enough to value you like a tech business instead of a retailer. Guzman y Gomez is trading north of a hundred times earnings. It sells burritos. That gap is the whole prize, and it gets earned by quantifying the benefit in public the way CBA just did.

Not every category is equally exposed. The more research a purchase takes, the higher the disintermediation risk. Consumer electronics, health and beauty, home improvement are the vulnerable ones. Groceries least. If your customer does an hour of reading before she buys, an agent is about to do that hour for her.

Retail media has quietly become the most profitable thing in retail. Grocery runs around 2% net margin. Specialty retail, eight to ten. Retail media runs at 70 to 80, because the data is already sitting there and all you’re adding is the tech to make it addressable. → Loyalty is the connector. Not the points, the unique ID. Without it you can’t tell that Tuesday’s customer and Friday’s customer are the same woman, and then you have transactions instead of a business.

And we have more room to run than we think. Australia does about 20% of retail online. China does closer to 50%.

Two things to act on. Reddit and increasingly LinkedIn are among the biggest sources feeding what an LLM recommends, so showing up in a community has quietly become distribution. And then the closing advice, which covers everything above:

“It needs to be useful. It needs to be valid. So you want to get it right.”

A result that isn’t relevant doesn’t just annoy someone, it erodes their trust in the whole platform. Getting found is worth nothing if what they find is wrong.

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Also this week

AI is making your laptop more expensive. Wholesale PC costs are up more than 50% on AI-driven memory shortages, because the chips in a laptop are the chips in a data centre and the data centres are winning. JB Hi-Fi posted $11.06 billion in sales, profit up 6% to $489.9 million and a dividend up 22.5%, and the shares still fell 12.3%. → Record year, punished anyway. If your product has silicon in it, your input costs are now set by a bidding war you are not part of.

The reporting week put numbers under all of it. Woolworths did $71.5 billion, up 3.6%, net profit up 18.1%, e-commerce up almost 16%. Coles did $41.5 billion in supermarkets, up 3.7%. Both into a market running at two speeds: value shoppers trading down and waiting for the promotion, and a wealthier cohort still spending freely. → There is no such thing as “the Australian consumer” right now. Build for the average of those two and you get a product neither wants.

And Woolworths credited Ooshies with roughly 1.5 to 2 percentage points of sales acceleration. A plastic toy moved one and a half points at a seventy-one billion dollar company. People don’t collect points. They collect things. What they’re really collecting is cultural capital, the thing you can put on the bench and have someone else recognise.

03 - THE EDIT

Lauren is our fashion editor, our music editor and the other MOODY sister. Kicking off september, in her words.

I’m listening to Jigitz, 50 Ballerinas, I’m wearing TIG 008 and I’m dancing like Adela. Only badly.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about something Jigitz said about their new album: ballet as a metaphor for obsession. Wanting something so badly you build your whole life around it. Knowing it might fuck you up and wanting it anyway.

Unfortunately, I get it.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the slightly irrational pursuit. A career move that would be much easier not to make. An idea you can’t leave alone. And, on a far less consequential level, the piece of clothing you absolutely do not need but have mentally styled seventeen different ways before you’ve left the store.

What stuck with me was the bigger parallel. Careers, ideas, goals. The thing you keep coming back to even when the sensible version of your life would be easier. The opportunity that scares you because saying yes might rearrange everything. The slightly unhinged belief that if you want something badly enough, you’ll find a way.

I’ve never been very good at wanting things casually.

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to the ballerina right now. Not the bows and slippers, the obsession underneath it. 50 Ballerinas is on repeat, and so is Adela’s Prima, because the baddest bitches ain’t in LA.

And TIG 008 is giving me the wardrobe: lace, washed-out pastels, sheer layers, elongated silhouettes and femininity with something a little stranger underneath. TIG feels like if Chloé and Ed Hardy had a gothic baby in Brazil whose hobbies include partying and surfing.

I said what I said.

What I love is that it never feels too resolved. Always something contradictory, a little chaotic, slightly off. Romantic without being precious, sexy without being obvious, a little bit wrong in exactly the right way.

Consider yourselves introduced.

And that became the starting point for this edit. Not ballet. Obsession. The pieces I can’t stop looking at, the designers I want you to know and the things that make absolutely no sense together until suddenly they do.

Lace with leather. Pretty things with a mean streak. A power suit because apparently we have jobs. Zebra wedges because apparently we also make bad decisions.

Not balletcore. Please don’t make me call it balletcore.

Just the current mood.

Lauren x

The September fashion edit→

The MOODY girl September playlist →

04 - THE DIARY

We needed a bigger boat. The Melbourne launch party has moved to Godby Hotel because the response broke the old venue. Same date, same time, more room. Wednesday 9 September, 6pm. RSVP →

Tue 1 Sept, closing. Startmate’s First Believer applications shut today. Last call.

Tue 1 Sept, virtual. Business Book Club round two with Sylvie. Virtual this time, so it doesn’t matter where you are. Be on this one.

Tue 1 Sept, Sydney. Nicole is running a content day and street interviews and wants a few more girls in it. @nikkicolesurfer.

Wed 2 Sept, New York. Ana is hosting an event with Emma Grede’s team for her book. NY girls, this is your room. RSVP

Tue 15 Sept, London. Canva’s AI Vision. Panels on AI, creativity and marketing. Hollie works there and has a 50% off code for us, so message her in the London chat. Her words: let’s fill the place with women so it stops being a boy topic.

Fri 18 Sept, Sydney. The Social Summit, Manly Pacific. I’m on stage with Lauren from Verity AI and Rowena from OpenAI for a session called The customer is no longer human. Code MOODY30. Tickets

Fri 18 Sept, Adelaide. The Dinner Club by Étoile, FARINA00 Goodwood, 7pm, $75. Every ticket puts a menstrual kit in the hands of a girl in South Australia.

Sat 19 Sept, Los Angeles. Pickleball and Prosecco for the LA crew. Details

The Yap Challenge kicks off in September. Details up top, channel is open, workshop date locked this week.

05 - RECEIPTS

What the girls have been building.

→ Leonie launches The Nested App today at midday. Built by qualified teachers for parents of 0 to 5s, it takes the mental load out of working out what to do with your kid when you have nothing left. thenestedapp.com. If you know a parent in the trenches, send it today.

→ The book club authors sent champagne. Two bottles waiting on the table when twenty women walked in to discuss From The Ground Up, plus a video message from Jess and Bree that Sylvie played to the room. The reveal that got everyone: Frank Body started as a case study for the founders’ copywriting agency. Not a brand plan. A demo.

→ Sylvie then manifested her way onto Add to Cart. Read the book, wrote it down, invited last week, records Friday. The book was Manifest. It’s also the next book club pick.

→ Cathy ran Adelaide. Caitlin, Emma and Jess ran London. First time for both, and neither needed me in the country. Cathy’s summary: one group shot and “some action wine shots.”

→ Kirby decided on Wednesday to run a meetup on Thursday. Coffee, a croissant and a yap at A.P Quay, purely because she was in Sydney for a few days. Nobody asked her to.

→ Karen Barr, who Rosie recommended in last week’s issue, has joined us. Twenty years in, just launched her own conveyancing practice. Recommended in issue one, a member by issue two.

→ Erin Core is done being a best-kept secret. MD of Veracity Research, five years in, freshly ISO 20252 accredited, and scaling through reputation instead of sales pressure.

→ Alexandra shipped Sigma Mind 1.0.2, and the best thing in it isn’t the AI. It’s the bit that asks whether your problem needs a model at all or whether plain automation would do.

→ Also new in the room: Lucy Hay, co-founder and CMO of CLUTCH Glue. Sharon, founder of OPILLAR and host of Beyond Wellness. Ano, building a beauty-tech platform on top of a day job putting AI into engineering teams.

06 - CLASSIFIEDS

What the girls need. All of it fresh this week.

→ Anthropic is hiring a Partnerships Lead for ANZ. If you have ever wanted to be the person in the room where those deals get done, this is it. Apply →

→ Atina wants a content person, or a small content team, for her personal brand. Short-form video editing, hook ideas, trend research, and someone with their finger genuinely on the pulse. Worth knowing who you’d be working with: she built and sold a shoe brand, grew a personal account to 75k, and used to be a strategy consultant. She’s starting a new account from scratch and wants someone who will tell her when a hook is weak. She’s in the Melbourne chat.

→ Kat runs People and Experience at PAL and has offered to talk to anyone here about hiring, recruitment, culture or Meta ads. Ex Big Four, Geelong based. @palaccounting_

→ Hollie has a 50% off code for Canva’s AI Vision on 15 September and is happy for you to use it to bring a friend. She’s in the London chat.

→ Nina is shooting TFP in Sydney and will do a complimentary shoot for any September launch or event. @nina.from.nowhere

→ Hailey is offering fundraising sessions to founders for the next little while. US advisory, Australia based, previously built a funding marketplace for female founders. She’s in the Investing chat.

→ Sababa needs a developer who has worked with the Meta API for Instagram. She’s a solo technical founder building Studio Crew, an AI operating system that gives a content creator their own virtual production crew. Currently at MVP on YouTube. She’s in Tech + AI.

→ Tanu is a product and website designer in Melbourne looking for women with an idea that needs building.

→ Ano is looking for a mentor, someone a few steps ahead who has built a tech or a beauty business. She’s in Tech + AI and Melbourne.

→ Sharon is looking for podcast hosts to collaborate with. OPILLAR · Beyond Wellness Podcast

Forward this to one girl who’d get it.

Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY →

🔗 Follow MOODY on social→

It’s a great line. It’s also the kind of line that’s very easy to say on a stage and very hard to back up.

So in January I was in New York for NRF, recording for AWS. If you’re not in retail, NRF is the industry’s Big Week: the National Retail Federation’s annual show at the Javits Center, 40,000 people, every major retailer and every vendor on earth, and roughly nine hundred conversations about the same three topics. This year those topics were AI, AI and AI.

I got Mandeep in a room, read his own line back to him, and asked him to show his working.

And he did. New episode is finally live.

We talked about agentic commerce for twenty-six minutes. Not the buzzword version. The what-are-you-actually-doing-on-a-Tuesday version.

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First, a confession.

This was recorded in January and I’m posting it in August.

Rewatching it was a genuinely strange experience. There are questions I’d ask completely differently now. There are follow-ups I can see myself not taking. Eight months ago I was still finding the shape of these conversations, and it shows in places.

I said as much to a friend recently, who is currently posting a video series she filmed last year and having the exact same quiet crisis about it. Genuinely the most reassuring conversation I’ve had in a while. Turns out a lot of us are sitting on good work from twelve months ago, negotiating with ourselves about whether it’s still allowed to be published.

So I’ve decided that’s the good bit, not the embarrassing bit. 2026 has moved at an absolutely insane pace, and having a tape of how I was thinking in January is a gift. You don’t often get to measure your own growth that precisely. So here it is, slightly awkward edges and all.

Six reasons to watch.

→ The receipts on that opening line. Augmented product data lifting discoverability, lifting conversion. The result: single-digit percentage gains in both conversion and incremental traffic. Not a moonshot. Just money that was sitting on the floor because a bag was described in the wrong words.

→ The best agentic AI story in the episode is about a playlist. Tapestry built a small internal app with AWS. Store associates send feedback, AI clusters it into themes, an agent routes them upstairs. The first real signal it surfaced was that the music in the stores was bad, so they changed it. A later theme was customers asking for an extra zipper, and that went into the product design. Two people built the thing. No eight figure budget. The most honest picture of agentic AI in retail I’ve seen is a playlist and a zipper.

→ The Pillow Tabby is a “puffy bag.” That’s what customers type. Coach calls it something else entirely. Tapestry’s team went through the product data and translated it out of merchant speak into consumer speak, which sounds like admin and is quietly one of the highest-leverage things a retailer can do right now. Get it wrong and you’re invisible to the model, no matter how good the bag is.

→ Defend, extend, append. The readiness framework he runs on, and he’s quick to say he didn’t invent it. Defend means if everyone else is discoverable and you aren’t, you’re losing ground. Extend means take a journey you already do well and stretch it into the new surface. Append means build something that didn’t exist. Three words, and it’ll organise your entire roadmap conversation.

→ The agent-to-agent hype gets a refreshingly unbothered take. Agents buying from agents won’t be huge any time soon, in his view. Build for it regardless, because when a customer is ready to buy there should be nothing standing in front of them. Most will still come to site or store. Some won’t. Don’t make those ones work for it.

→ “Think about new ways of doing the work, not your org chart.” My favourite thing he said, and there’s a story attached. A marketing ops lead at Coach got excited about the technology, saw customer insights sitting in a database, and built herself an agent to surface them. Not asking permission. Just going. That’s not a technology story, it’s a permission story, and permission is the actual constraint in most buildings.

Which is why my favourite moment is the one Mandeep almost throws away at the end. Everyone asks what’s going to change, he says. Almost nobody asks what isn’t.

His answer to that is the whole episode.

Twenty-six minutes. Go watch.

Brooke x

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MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY →

🔗 Follow MOODY on social→

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I asked Rach Tucker why she chose beverage. Of all the things a brand strategist with a full-time job could build, why the category with the worst odds, the ugliest working capital and the meanest shelf in the country.

“Naivety? Hahahaha! I wanted to build a brand I was proud of and a product I’d genuinely reach for. I’ve always been fascinated by pleasure, sexual wellness and beverage, and I saw a gap for something that sat between functional wellness and social ritual. Nothing was really owning mood, intimacy and connection. So naturally, I made 20,000 cans.”

So naturally.

Twenty thousand cans. Imported actives, manufacturing, packaging, freight, all of it paid up front and sitting in a warehouse while she goes to her day job. Say that out loud and it sounds like a leap. Spend an hour on how she’s actually built this and it stops sounding like one.

Smooch is a social soda made with functional actives and aphrodisiac herbs. Sultry, moody, magnetic. A sip that brings the spark. Rach calls it “a functional drink, but also a ritual and a tool for connection”, and I want to spend this whole piece on why that second half of the sentence is the entire business.

Before any of the analysis, though, I should tell you how I know her.

Six months later we were celebrating her launch at our Sydney launch party. We could not have been prouder.

If you want to know what a MOODY girl looks like in practice, that’s it. Not the launch. The turning up in between, for months, while it’s still just an idea and a spreadsheet.

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01 — she killed her own best headline

Smooch didn’t start as a mood drink. It started as an arousal drink, which is a spicier, more clippable, more press-friendly thing to be. Rach walked away from it herself:

“Arousal was too tricky a promise. Every body is different, and there is no silver bullet. Smooch was always about creating the conditions for desire to spark. Mood is a clearer promise and a bigger opportunity. Smooch is about helping shift the energy. Feeling more present, playful, sexy and connected.”

Read that as a founder rather than a consumer. She had the louder claim in her hand and traded it for one she can actually deliver, before a single journalist made her.

That’s not a marketing decision. That’s a repeat-purchase decision, and repeat purchase is the whole game. NielsenIQ’s own BASES team went through more than 60,000 product innovations across five countries and found that just 52% of new items reaching national distribution are still growing sales in year two. Drop the distribution threshold to include everything launched and it falls to 33%. Two in three new products are already going backwards by their second birthday.

Which tells you what the buyer is actually watching. Not doors. Velocity. How fast the cans leave each fridge. They give you the shelf on a story and take it back on a number, usually inside one review cycle.

So the promise on the can has to survive contact with a real person on a real Tuesday night. Overclaim and you’ll sell the first one, because the first one is sold by the marketing. You only ever sell the second one if the drink did what you said it would.

02 — the graveyard and the gold rush, at the same time

Let’s not be precious. Beverage is brutal.

It isn’t a small-brand problem either. Alex Cooper’s Unwell Beverages is winding up this month, less than two years after launching in partnership with Nestlé and with Target out front, while the day before that news broke the wider Unwell business took investment from Patrick Whitesell at a $500 million valuation. So this is not a company that ran out of money. This is a company with every advantage available looking at beverage and deciding it wasn’t worth the fridge space. I don’t read that as a failure of ambition. I read it as the category telling the truth about itself, loudly, in public.

Now the other half, because it’s why smart people keep doing this anyway.

PepsiCo acquired Poppi in 2025 for $1.95 billion, or $1.65 billion net of anticipated tax benefits, plus an earnout. A prebiotic soda. Olipop hit a $1.85 billion valuation in a Series C last February, having doubled sales to $400 million and turned profitable. Coca-Cola chose to build rather than buy and launched Simply Pop, its first prebiotic soda, into the same fight.

The no-and-low side is just as loud. Asahi has committed to a 20% sales composition ratio of non- and low-alcohol adult beverages within its major alcohol products by 2030. Diageo took a majority stake in Seedlip in 2019, fully acquired Ritual Zero Proof in 2024, and put €25 million into a dedicated Guinness 0.0 facility at St James’s Gate. Moët Hennessy took a minority stake in French Bloom. Molson Coors partnered with Naked Life, Australia’s biggest non-alc RTD cocktail brand, to take it into the US.

At home, IBISWorld has functional beverage production at $1.0 billion in 2025-26, up 12.3% in a single year, across 117 businesses.

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03 — everyone built the substitute. rach built the occasion.

The Australian numbers are not subtle. AIHW has alcohol available for consumption at 9.8 litres of pure alcohol per person aged 15 and over in 2023-24, down from 10.5 the year before. That’s the biggest single-year drop since the collection started in 1960-61.

It’s generational, not a blip. Flinders University analysed more than two decades of data from over 23,000 Australians and found Gen Z are nearly twenty times more likely to choose not to drink than Baby Boomers, even after adjusting for sociodemographic factors. Circana has the share of Australians buying zero-alcohol versions more than doubling since August 2020, and non-alcoholic drinks adding $1.8 billion in sales over the past two years.

Almost everybody read that and built a substitute. Fake beer. Fake gin. The apology version of the thing you used to order, priced like the real one, drunk with a faint sense of loss.

Rach read it as an occasion:

“Drinking is inherently social and ritualistic. Whether it’s wine at dinner, tea and gossip, or a soda with someone you fancy. Smooch is powerful because it is built around that moment of connection, but one that is sexy, sultry, magnetic, a little moody. When people buy Smooch, they’re not just buying a drink. They’re buying into the idea that feeling good, feeling sexy and making space for connection is worth prioritising.”

That’s not a substitute, it’s a category. Hydration, where Unwell went, is the most crowded, most price-compared, most brand-agnostic shelf in the store. Mood, intimacy and connection has no incumbent, no giant defending it and no obvious Coca-Cola line extension waiting to squash it.

She also refuses to do the beachy sunny thing, which I love. Every functional drink in this country looks like a Bondi morning. Smooch looks like 9pm. When you’re the smallest brand in the fridge, distinctiveness is a distribution strategy.

04 — cash flow, and the two buyers who decide

I asked what a fortnight in had taught her that no amount of planning prepared her for.

“Cash flow. What the fuck.”

Correct. Beverage has the working capital profile of a mining project and the margin profile of a snack. You pay for all of it up front, then wait for a warehouse to slowly turn back into money.

The Australian shelf makes that harder. In its February 2025 supermarkets inquiry, the ACCC put Woolworths at 38% of national supermarket grocery sales and Coles at 29%, together roughly 67% of supermarket industry revenue, and called it “an oligopolistic market structure in which Coles and Woolworths have limited incentive to compete vigorously with each other on price.” Two buyers, two-thirds of the market. If both say no, there is no third door at scale, and a founder with 20,000 cans and a term of trade cannot wait out a category review.

So when Rach says the plan is independent grocers, hotels, bars and restaurants, that isn’t a cute starter strategy. It’s the only door in the building, and for a drink selling an occasion it’s the better one anyway. You want someone’s first Smooch to happen at a table with a person they fancy, not under fluorescent lighting next to the Powerade.

Right now it’s smoochdrinks.com and a select few Sydney stockists. Next is more doors, more fridges, more hands.

Ask most founders what they’re chasing and you get an adjective. Ask Rach and you get this:

“2,000 followers, 15 retail doors and 250 online orders by Summer.”

Three numbers and a deadline. That’s not a vibe, that’s a target you can be held to, and she said it out loud in public, which is the part most people won’t do.

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rapid fire with rach

Because this series comes with a rapid fire round, and nobody leaves without doing it.

What’s the mood right now? “Hustle mood. We’re early, there’s momentum, and I’m determined not to waste it.” Pace, adrenaline, opportunity, figuring it out as she goes. Her word for it: “slightly addictive.”

Most unhinged thing you’ve done for the business? “Lie about my age and wear a ring on my ring finger. Sorrrrry, but sometimes you’ve gotta fake it to be taken seriously.”

What are ambitious women doing too much of, and not enough of? “We need to spend less time building in AI, and more time building in real life. AI can make us faster, but relationships take us further. Go to the lunch. Show up to the drinks. Meet the person. Trust is still the ultimate career accelerator, and you can’t prompt engineer it.”

Advice to yourself five years ago? “Success is infinite. Someone else winning doesn’t mean there’s less left for you. They rise, you rise.”

What do you want the MOODY girls to find you for? Brand strategy, creative thinking, and “the very unglamorous realities of building a CPG brand from scratch.” Selfishly, collaborations: pop-ups, events, creative partnerships, PR, retail introductions. “If our brands could make something more fun together, I want to hear about it.”

The one intro that changes your next 90 days? “Distributors. I’m looking for partners with strong relationships across both retail and foodservice who can help open the right doors. If you know one, send them my way.”

Where can we find you? Rach on LinkedIn. Smooch at @smooch.drinks and smoochdrinks.com.

so here’s where i’ve landed

The received wisdom is that beverage is won on reach. Get famous, get seen, get stocked. Reach is also the single easiest input in the whole model to buy, which is exactly why it decides nothing.

What can’t be bought is an occasion nobody owns and a promise you can actually keep. Rach has both, and she got them by making the unglamorous choice at every fork: kill the louder claim, take the harder doors, say the number out loud.

There’s a line of hers I keep coming back to. Less time building in AI, more time building in real life. You can’t prompt engineer trust. She’s selling a can designed to get two people to sit down together, which means the belief and the product are the same object. That is rarer than it sounds, and it’s usually the difference between a company and a range of flavours.

Twenty thousand cans is a terrifying amount of conviction for a woman doing this around a full-time job. It’s also the good kind of terrifying. She’s already ordered. Now she just has to be right, and she’s building like someone who intends to be.

In February she told a room she was going to do this. By August it existed. That’s the whole point of the room.

Go buy a can. They’re delicious. Better yet, send her a distributor.

Love Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY →

🔗 Follow MOODY on social→

Subscribe now

Hi divas 🤍

Arielle, Jordyn and I were talking last week about the death of self in order to become the next version.

Dramatic. Using it anyway. When you’re building something, there’s a stretch where the version of you everyone already knows has to die before the version you’re becoming turns up. Nobody warns you that the gap between those two women is where you spend most of your time. You’re not who you were. You’re not yet who you’re going for. You’re just in it, making decisions nobody claps for, explaining yourself at dinners, quietly wondering whether this is conviction or delusion.

I’ve been in it myself lately. It’s like my shoes have gotten too small. I know I’m getting new ones, I just don’t know which pair yet, so I keep trying them on. Too small. Too big. Too shiny. Not the right style.

And I keep having to remind myself that the trying on is the work. It’s reps. A thousand of them before you’re good at anything, and not one of them is worth posting. The reps you do in private are the only thing that builds the muscle. In business, in creativity, in life.

It’s also not lost on me that I reached for shoes. Fashion is where I’ve worked a lot of this out, because trying on versions of yourself is so much easier when it’s literally clothes, and considerably more fun.

Which is not a small thing in my family. Mum was Miss Australia in the eighties, my sister Lauren modelled professionally for a decade, and I had a brief, extremely 2013 stint in fashion PR launching Net-a-Porter and Country Road Home here. So I have never thought about how we dress as decoration. It’s what decides the energy you carry into a room, and it counts for most in exactly the transitions I’m describing.

Three women have done that for me this year. Cat Spanti got me through the wedding and found my bride personality, which turned out to be confident and loud with permission to be soft and a little silly. Shannen Thomas at Désordre has styled me for everything from Domefest to our launch party, including that 6kg bedazzled dress and helped me find my hosting identity. And I always come back to Lauren, the other MOODY sister who has the most complete sense of self in how she dresses of anyone I know.

Which is why she is now our fashion editor. More from her below.

Two weeks ago we put 150 of the most ambitious women in this country in one room in Sydney. What I felt, standing in the middle of it, was that nearly every person there was in that exact chapter. Different businesses, different cities, same gap. All of them further into the discomfort than they’d ever admit online.

And it isn’t a big-room thing. This weekend twenty of us sat down for coffee and croissants in Brisbane and it was exactly the same feeling, just quieter.

That’s the whole thing. That’s why this exists. You don’t get out of the lonely chapter by being tougher. You get out of it by standing in a room where nobody needs it explained to them.

I love us. I’m so fucking proud of us.

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02 - THE READ

CONSUMER & RETAIL

Australians say they’re broke. Retail just hit $40 billion a month.

On Monday JB Hi-Fi fell 13%, closing at $71.65 from an $81.72 open, comparable sales down 1.4% in the first four weeks of the financial year. eToro’s read: three rate hikes, the consumer is under pressure. Every headline in the country ran with it.

Three days later, Roy Morgan forecast Australian retail past $40 billion in a single month for the first time in history. Up 6% year on year. Household goods up 8.8%.

Both true, same week. The money didn’t leave, it moved. And JB’s problem is a supply problem as much as a demand one, because chipmakers are prioritising AI infrastructure, so tech stock got scarcer and dearer at exactly the moment shoppers went hunting for value.

Your bank wants to be your loyalty program. CommBank expanded Yello across home loans, savings, cards and insurance. → Which is why I keep saying don’t build a loyalty program. The bank has your entire financial life. You cannot out-point them.

Spotify and Depop are collaborating. Music discovery meets secondhand fashion discovery. → Nobody is selling a product here, they’re selling the same taste in two places. If your customer’s taste travels across categories, your collab list is longer than you think.

BUSINESS & INVESTING

Blackbird closed a billion dollars. Fund six, targeting $1.2bn. Their 2022 fund was the biggest VC raise in Australian history. → A closed fund is a deployment schedule, not a vibe. And in the same week they went hiring a brand storytelling and community lead, which tells you what they think creates deal flow.

BÉIS sold for $210 million. Alex Cooper’s Unwell is shutting down. Same week, same question: can an audience be turned into a brand? Shay Mitchell’s answer was yes. Alex Cooper’s was no, and Cooper has the bigger audience of the two, so size isn’t the variable. → The variable is in the multiple. BÉIS made around $210m in a year and sold for around $210m, so roughly one times revenue. Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, doing comparable revenue in skincare, was valued at a billion. You buy skincare every six weeks and luggage every five years, and that one fact is the entire gap. Category choice is a valuation decision, not a passion one. → Separately, count the coverage the Unwell shutdown got against everything Cooper has actually built. We are so much faster to report an ending.

→ We back what we understand, and we understand what we work in. Concentration risk is the quiet one.

TECH & AI

Canva lost $11 billion. Blackbird and Airtree cut their mark 17%, employee shares cut 20%, growth forecast down from 30% to 20%. Melanie Perkins: the cost of serving an AI task was too high. → Everyone called it AI beating Canva. It’s a margin story wearing an AI story’s coat, and every one of you shipping an AI feature is running the same equation at a smaller scale.

→ Every one of them introduced themselves by what they’re building, not what they do. That’s the difference between a channel and a room.

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HEALTH & BEAUTY

Three of these are the same story: how fast this category is monetising, and how slowly the rules are catching up.

A free TikTok trend is now a $59.99 product. EZZ launched a daily powder off the viral cortisol cocktail. → The demand gen was done for nothing by women on TikTok. If people are copying your format uninvited, someone is eventually going to put a barcode on it.

Kim Kardashian is selling broccoli. Partnered with Broc Shot. → Ingestibles are where beauty margin went. Lower regulatory bar than skincare, higher repeat purchase, claims you never quite have to prove.

Sunscreen gate isn’t over. Ultra Violette has sent customers another update. The TGA investigation is still live. → And here’s the bill for the two stories above it. When a category sells faster than it can substantiate, the regulator eventually turns up. Trust never shows on a balance sheet, which is why brands only find out what it was worth after they’ve spent it.

Postpartum care is going national. Senator Marielle Smith wants an inquiry covering birth trauma, mental health, breastfeeding and allied health access. → An inquiry is a market signal as much as a policy one. It documents the gaps in public, with evidence, for free.

MEDIA & THE CREATOR ECONOMY

Sophia Begg fronts Glassons’ premium collection You may better know her as Sopha Dopha. A creator getting a campaign is old news. A mass retailer using one to sell up is not. → Creators carry aspiration now, and aspiration is the expensive part.

In our chat: Rachel shared a piece on keeping things private and Kayla landed it: a personal brand doesn’t have to be every waking moment of your life. → The market is paying more for creators than it ever has. The price of admission is climbing at the same rate and nobody prints that number.

Influencer weddings are a marketing platform. Paige Paul and Acquired Style both in the past fortnight. → The only content format with a guaranteed audience, a fixed date and unlimited brand slots. Of course it got productised. Slightly grim. Extremely smart.

Earle Meets World. The trailer landed this week, Netflix drops it 4 September. Alix Earle, 13 million followers, a reality series about a content creator making content. → The old path was influencer to sponsorships. The new one is influencer to media asset, and Netflix is now buying audiences instead of building them. Alix gets the platform and the cheque. Netflix gets 13 million people it didn’t have to earn. Decide which of those you’d rather own.

03 - THE STYLE EDIT

Shop the MOODY GIRL edit →

Hi divas, I’m Lauren. Among many other things, your MOODY fashion editor.

I’m a chronic overdresser, an obsessive outfit researcher and deeply susceptible to beautiful things, weird things and things that make absolutely no practical sense but somehow make perfect emotional sense.

I’m not interested in finding one neat aesthetic and sticking to it, and that probably traces back to spending my most formative years modelling, living as someone else’s creative canvas. A chameleon. I was dressed as a hundred different women before I’d worked out who I was, so I’m not especially interested in being told which one I’m supposed to be now.

Those years also taught me how much I love the hunt. Alone in foreign cities between castings, digging through consignment stores, vintage basements and the IYKYK places you only find because someone whispered the address to you. Learning to look properly. To spot the thing with history, the thing everyone else missed, the thing worth carrying home in an already-overweight suitcase. I want to build an archive, not a perfect wardrobe.

So that’s the energy I’m bringing. Taste over trends. Curiosity over rules. Discovery over consumption. Not just what to buy, but how to notice.

MOODY launches, packed calendars, late nights and very little interest in dressing appropriately for any of it. I want my tailoring sharp, my lace a little indecent and absolutely nothing sensible. We’re wearing sheer in daylight, suits that mean business and pieces that make people stop and ask questions.

Obviously, we don’t gatekeep here. No must-haves. No trend forecast. No fucking capsule wardrobes.

Only lust-haves and vibes. Take it or leave it, divas. Fashion is a choice, not a crisis. Make it fun.

Shop the MOODY GIRL edit →

Lauren is available for personal styling, whether you have an event or big meeting coming up or need a full wardrobe refresh. lauren@getmoody.co

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04 - THE DIARY

Six cities this week, and on Friday we’re in two of them at once on opposite sides of the planet, and I’m running neither. That’s the part I want you to notice.

First, the big one. Wed 9 Sept, the MOODY Melbourne launch party. Our biggest night of the year. Co-hosted with Melbourne city leads Lauren, Sarah and Udoka. Nearly 100 of you are registered and there is a capacity number I am going to hit. Get your name down, sort the logistics later. Register →

Tue 25 Aug, Gold Coast. MOODY Gold Coast at Bam Bam Bakehouse, Mermaid Beach. Coffee, matcha, bagels, no panels, no pitches. Georgia and me. RSVP

Wed 26 Aug, Sydney. MOODY Business Book Club, first ever session, 7pm at Four In Hand, Paddington. Sylvie of Unicorn Cart hosting, reading From The Ground Up by Bree Johnson and Jess Hatzis. Full, but the waitlist moves. Waitlist

Thurs 27 Aug, London. MOODY London at Nancy’s, London Bridge. Your city leads Caitlin, Emma and Jess. Drinks and a yap, that’s the format. RSVP

Fri 28 Aug, Adelaide. MOODY Adelaide, 5:30pm at Honeydripper, 11 Frome St. Your city lead Cathy Karuga is running it. No panels, no pitches, come on your own if you want to. RSVP

Sat 29 Aug, Sydney. Build A Personal Brand Bigger Than Your Business, QT Sydney, taught by Teodora Ivin. Standard $89, networking-only tickets still available. Tickets

Mon 1 Sept, closing. Startmate’s First Believer applications shut. You learn the early-stage framework, review 800+ real applications, interview founders. Lisa did it two years ago and rates it.

Fri 18 Sept, Sydney. The Social Summit, Manly Pacific. I’m on stage with Lauren from Verity AI and Rowena from OpenAI for a session called The customer is no longer human, which is the conversation I have been waiting to have out loud in front of a room. Arielle and Jordyn are speaking too, and the three of us went from knowing each other to being a trio at this event, so walking back in together is not something I’m going to be normal about. Code MOODY30. Tickets

Dates landing next week: the Melbourne golf day, the Étoile dinner in Adelaide and pickleball in LA.

05 - RECEIPTS

What you’ve been building. A month’s worth, because I’ve been hoarding.

→ Amelia Godfrey has 6,500 patients on Pelvy. 125 clinics, seven countries, eight months since launch. Bootstrapped, built while working part time as a pelvic health physio, and funded with her house deposit and her car fund. She’s also offered to talk anyone here through launching on a budget, which she has more authority on than almost anyone I know.

→ Codie ordered the samples. Pilates socks. Two years of thinking about it, talking herself out of it, coming back to it. The fear was still there and she went anyway, and she credited this group for the push. That’s the chapter I was talking about up top, and what got her through it was other women saying do it.

→ Nancy Cao and Udoka are running two events together. Saturday’s personal branding workshop and a Vietnamese cooking night in October, both seeded in here. Two women met in this chat and are now producing events with me nowhere in the middle. That isn’t a nice story. That’s the product working.

→ Melissa Drennan, MD of Napoleon Perdis, launched a subscription. The Golden Ritual: quarterly box, 40+ full-size products, no sample sizes, around $2 a day. Love seeing an iconic Aussie brand in this good a pair of hands, trying something new.

→ PARQ Sport is making golf a female space. The brainchild of Sarah, Viktoria, Woods and Jen from Dissh. Sarah floated a MOODY x PARQ golf day in the Melbourne chat and had seven women in within the hour, most of whom have never played. Women’s sport has never been hotter. We’re planning a collab, watch this space.

→ London is becoming its own thing. Liv is launching a bridal and occasion ready-to-wear label and came into the chat looking for PR contacts. Soph is bringing Nice One, Aussie-style canned cocktails, and wants a satellite. Neither of them knows anyone there yet. Friday fixes that.

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06 - CLASSIFIEDS

→ Hiring for a Brand Storytelling & Community Lead, Blackbird. The fund that just closed a billion is hiring exactly one storyteller, working with Joel Connolly and the art department across the brand, the community programs including Sunrise and Spring Camp, and the Foundation. Erin vouched for Joel personally: “12/10 recommend any opportunity to work with him.” I can’t think of a community job in Australian tech with more leverage in it. Apply →

→ Hiring for a Corporate Partnership Advisor, SYNC Health. Founding-level seat on the leadership team of a personalised telehealth company, with real upside as they scale. A “your network is the product” role. If you’ve spent a decade building relationships and watching other people monetise them, read it twice. Amelia’s in the LA chat.

→ Hiring for a Digital Marketing Manager + Social & Content Manager, Burleigh. Two roles, one brand, and Sylvie knows the founder directly. She’s not a recruiter, which makes this the good kind of introduction. Gold Coast girls.

→ Brand designer, food supplement brand, looking for a freelancer. Full visual identity and packaging, possibly ongoing. Must understand the regulatory limits on supplement claims. Worth knowing before you pitch: Atina built and sold a consumer brand before this one, so she’ll brief properly and pay on time.

→ Pelvy is raising. Amelia is after $300k pre-seed, closing November. Numbers above. She’s in this chat and she is not going to chase you.

→ Nina is offering MOODY girls a complimentary shoot for any event or launch in September. ninafromnowhere.com or producedbynina@gmail.com

→ Holly built funds.wiki, a database of investor leads, then offered to add hundreds more from her own investor calls. For free. In a group chat.

→ Kate needs a contract lawyer who knows Chinese manufacturers and the fashion industry. Rebecca wants the same rec.

→ Sophia is building a community plan for a podcast that’s already doing well and wants to know what actually moved the needle. @sophiafromtmrw

→ Karen Barr is the best for conveyancing. Rosie: “she talked me off a cliff.” She picks up the phone and the contracts are chic. karelba.com.au or @karelba.convey

→ Bree is offering career coaching, and runs a recruitment and people growth agency.

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it, and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

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Last week I sat in a room with Australia’s biggest podcasters and watched two platform execs describe an internet that has stopped paying for being liked.

Jordyn Christensen and Kirsty Wilson put the room together. Jordyn runs podcast partnerships at Spotify, Kirsty is Global Partnerships at Meta ANZ. Toni Lodge and Ryan Jon keynoted, and if you don’t know them: five episodes a week on their show Toni & Ryan, over a million downloads a month, built out of rude jokes that went viral on TikTok.

I debriefed with Jordyn afterwards and we did not stop talking for an hour. This is that conversation, with receipts.

It starts where everything started that week. Tate McRae picked up a makeup wipe and the whole creator economy fell out of it.

You’ve seen the video. Private jet to Lollapalooza, post show routine, more than eighteen million views, and the wipe never touched her face. Not once. It hovered.

The internet went feral, obviously. But nobody’s talking about what happened eleven days later. Neutrogena posted a reply voiced by an animated makeup wipe, asking everyone to please respect its privacy as it adjusts to fame. Iconic, no notes. A marketing academic told the New York Times the episode probably grew awareness, on the basis that nobody was otherwise going to be discussing makeup wipes in the Times.

So read the ledger. She paid in credibility. They collected in reach. Then they got a bonus round for the trouble.

This isn’t a Tate McRae problem. She was just the one holding the wipe when the model stopped working for creators.

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A rate card is not a business

The generalist influencer was never a business. It was a rental agreement.

You rent reach from a platform monthly. You sell it on to a brand at a discount. The second either party changes the terms, you own nothing. No authority, no niche, no list, no feed. A rate card and a good week.

Jordyn’s version:

I’d already felt it land in my inbox. A brand sent me a brief last month and the first page was a list of things they didn’t want. No day in my life. No morning routine. Nothing beauty led. What they wanted was the teardown, the how does this actually work version. They were paying for the part of me that knows things and had specifically ruled out the part of me that turns up looking fine.

Five years ago that brief was the exact opposite document. Same category, same money, reverse polarity.

Now the less flattering half, because I’m not standing outside this. Most deals I sign carry an exclusivity clause. Standard, priced accordingly, everybody does it. It is also, said out loud, a brand paying me not to be an expert on anything else in that category for a set number of months.

I sign them. I’d sign the next one. But I’ve stopped reading exclusivity as a premium and started reading it as a price, because every category I sell out of is a category I’ve agreed not to be trusted in.

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Brands didn’t grow a conscience

They moved the budget.

Influencer spend used to sit in the brand bucket, where the job was awareness and nobody had to prove very much. It’s been quietly reclassified as performance, and performance budgets have always been measured to death. Every line gets judged on cost per acquisition and average order value like any other media buy.

So the attribution was always there. Nobody was pointing it at us.

Being liked was free money right up until somebody started counting. Likeability stopped being a line item. You cannot attribute a vibe. You can attribute an expert who moves a category.

Rachel Lai made the same case this week from the buying side, and better than I just did. She’d just onboarded a client and committed tens of thousands to partnerships, and none of the top affiliates driving those sales are making get ready with me content. What those creators charge reflects their authority, their expertise, and the trust their audience places in them.

Cat Spanti is the clearest version of this. You go to her because she’s a known authority on one thing, not because she surfaced in your feed on a Tuesday. She also moves product, and her ShopMy is the proof. Measurable, which is the entire point.

The platforms are building for the same shift. Instagram is testing Series, which groups your reels into a titled hub with a watch next button. Its VP of Product Tessa Lyons said the quiet part out loud at the Scaleable Summit: the platform wants to be part of creators’ long form strategy now, not just the short form one.

Meta spent five years training all of us to make things fifteen seconds long. It has now built a channel guide.

Taste is a mood. Expertise is a position you can be held to.

Toni put it in one line: “When you try to be relevant to everyone, you’re relevant to no one.”

Authority needs room

The same market that started paying for expertise also started rewarding length. Not a coincidence.

A reel can make a claim. Only long form shows the thinking underneath it, and the thinking is what’s being bought. Which means the expert shift and the long form shift are one shift, and we’ve spent three years reading the top of the funnel like it’s the bottom of it.

TikTok is where that error lives, and it’s still the best discovery machine ever built. It let in a whole generation of creators who’d never have been allowed in the room otherwise. Toni and Ryan are the proof, and Toni is unsentimental about it: “The short form videos for us is literally what began this whole thing, and we wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t taken a chance on posting it.”

But discovery is a job, not a destination. Jordyn:

Her read on why the audience moved is the part I keep repeating, because it isn’t about attention spans at all. Gen Z want things that feel a bit media. Educational, inspirational, made with intent. Not five seconds of something.

A million views on something nobody can find again isn’t a business. It’s a party trick.

Kirsty put the same point from inside the building, about the grid everybody agonises over. Nobody comes to your grid as much as you do. Vanity metric, her words.

Then the local number nobody is using. Edison’s Infinite Dial Australia 2026 has fifty five per cent of Australians consuming podcasts monthly, up from fifty two per cent last year. Buried in the same report: TikTok weekly usage, down a percentage point year on year.

Same market. Same twelve months. One up, one down.

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Own the thing nobody can switch off

Long form has a second advantage: it’s the only format that lives somewhere you control. Nobody has an RSS feed of your reels.

Here’s the test I run on everything now. If the algorithm changed its mind tomorrow, would this still exist?

MOODY passes. Five hundred plus women in a WhatsApp community and a calendar of events, with no feed sitting between me and them. Nobody can throttle it. Nobody can deprecate it. We’re growing it across channels but the list is the asset.

Long form expert content and education is the natural next expansion and I’ll be honest, we’re still working out what that looks like for the community. But the direction isn’t in question. Jordyn:

The numbers back it.

Platforms only cut the entry bar when they need supply. Read that as a hiring ad, not a favour.

The money has moved to retention, not reach. Kirsty walked us through two pieces of content from the same podcast, and the longer one that actually held people paid out double.

None of this is new, which is the funny part. Subscriptions and AdSense are the OG revenue streams. We’re not inventing the future. We’re going back to charging people for something good, after a decade of asking advertisers to cover it.

The advertiser model makes the creator the product. The subscription model makes the work the product.

Only one of those survives a bad week.

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Everyone wants a village

Toni and Ryan solved the ownership problem years ago, while everyone else was still arguing about it. They refuse to send anyone anywhere.

Their private Facebook group of a hundred and fifty thousand has never carried a sponsored post. Deliberately. They answer their own comments and their own DMs.

Which sounds like the opposite of owning an audience, right up until you notice where their money is.

It’s Patreon. It converts precisely because the free tiers were never a funnel.

Ryan’s reasoning is the least complicated thing in this article: “If you want someone to comment on your stuff, the least you can do is read it.” Then the line I’m never going to beat: everyone wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager.

If you’re on the brand side

Two things follow from all of this, and neither of them is a content calendar.

The first is who you brief. Stop buying reach and start buying authority in your actual category. A creator with a defined niche and a measurable audience will move product in a way a general lifestyle name will not, and you’ll be able to prove it, which is the part your CFO cares about.

The second is what you make. If audiences have moved to long form, your brand needs a long form answer, and most don’t have one. A podcast, a series, an owned newsletter, something with room in it. Right now nearly everyone is still buying fifteen second placements inside somebody else’s feed and calling it a strategy.

The read

Tate McRae spent her audience relationship on a wipe she never used and the brand kept the change. Toni and Ryan spend nothing and charge for the trust directly. Same asset, opposite directions.

Which brings me back to that brief. A brand paid a premium for the version of me that knows something, and specifically didn’t want the version that shows up looking fine. That’s not a category quirk. That’s the market repricing, and the creators who’ve spent five years being pleasant about everything are about to find out what pleasant is worth.

Twelve things we learnt in that room

Before the tactics, the four that actually matter. Name the one thing you want to be called about, and make it one. Move your best thinking somewhere it can breathe. Build one line of contact with no algorithm sitting in the middle of it. Price exclusivity as what it costs you, not what they’re offering.

Now the toolkit.

→ 2/3 of your reels go to strangers. reels are for reach, carousels and stories are where you actually keep people

→ only slides 1 and 2 of a carousel get served, so stop saving the good stuff for slide six

→ you can reorder a carousel after posting. your best slide is data now, not a guess

→ add audio to a carousel and it gets served in the reels tab. same post, new audience

→ “new ep out now” was the worst performing content across the top 100 pods. announcing is not marketing

→ one personal moment outperforms a hundred polished clips. the polish was never the point

→ jump on every new feature the week it launches. meta gives its own products extra visibility and early movers get the growth

→ shares are the metric for entertainment, saves are the metric for education. know which one you’re making

→ write the clip before you record. if you’re cutting after the fact you’re already too late

→ threads is 500m people and australia is asleep. that’s not a risk, that’s a gap

→ facebook pays from 10 seconds. everything shorter is unpaid labour

→ don’t be the girl begging meta for help when you get hacked. turn on 2fa!!!

Brooke x

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MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it, and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY →

🔗 Follow MOODY on social→

Last Thursday I stood in a kitchen in Bellevue Hill and watched a woman buy a blender without touching anything.

Her name is Keira. She was mid-demo, hosting a room full of creators, and somewhere between the puff pastry and the cake ingredients she decided she needed a new blender. So she asked for one. Out loud. To the air.

Alexa+ came back with options. Keira narrowed it to Ninja. Asked which suited a power user. Asked the price. Two hundred and sixty nine dollars. Then she said the sentence I haven’t stopped thinking about since:

Done. Price watch set. Somewhere in the next few weeks that blender will drop, and Keira will get a ping asking one question: go ahead? One yes, from wherever she happens to be standing, and it’s bought.

Nobody in the room gasped. That’s the part that got me. The entire shop, the research, the comparison, the choosing, the waiting for the price, just walked out of a human’s hands and into an assistant’s. The human kept one word of the process: yes. And the room nodded along like she’d checked the weather.

The fluff-free version below.

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01 — Answering was never buying

We’ve been promised voice shopping for a decade, and you know why it never showed up. You’ve lived it. You asked your speaker for dishwasher tablets and that was the entire relationship. Anything needing actual judgement, two jackets, a foundation shade, went back to your phone. In 2018, analysts predicted US voice shopping would hit $40 billion by 2022. Four years past the deadline, the whole US market is barely half that. The speaker could answer. It couldn’t finish the job.

What launched last week acts. She researches, compares, decides inside your rules, and completes the checkout on your go-ahead. And you just talk to her: no wake word every five seconds, no robot phrasing, and she keeps up when you change your mind mid-sentence. The industry calls it agentic commerce, a terrible phrase for a simple idea. You delegate the shopping. The agent does it.

And when the agent does it, conversion gets spicy. Adobe tracked over a trillion retail visits: shoppers arriving via AI convert 42% better than everyone else, a full reversal from a year earlier when AI traffic converted worse. Of course it does. The agent doesn’t browse. Doesn’t get distracted by the sale rack. Arrives already decided.

Amazon has watched the same thing inside its own walls. Shoppers who use Rufus are 60% more likely to buy, 250 million people used it this year, and Andy Jassy told investors it’s pacing past $10 billion in incremental sales. Ten billion dollars of “actually, just help me decide.”

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02 — You’d let her reorder the tablets. You would not let her pick your foundation.

Be honest. That’s where your trust line sits, and the whole country agrees. Adyen’s 2026 Australian index found the funniest gap in commerce right now: 100% of surveyed enterprise retailers are using AI, and 64% of Australians don’t want it completing a purchase. Everyone’s building the thing. Two thirds of customers won’t let it finish.

I’ll out myself: until Thursday, I was one of the 64%.

Ridiculous, because this is my job. I’ve seen the demos at NRF, in New York, in Singapore. I interviewed the US Alexa+ team in May and left thinking what I always think: all of the pieces, none of the ties. You cannot delegate your shopping to a roadmap.

Thursday tied them. Watching her check whether an outfit worked. Watching someone hold something up mid-recipe, will this work as a substitute, and get an answer with quantities. A menu adjusted because she remembered a guest’s dietary needs. None of it a party trick. All of it Tuesday-night useful. And my trust moved, in real time, exactly the way I write about.

So no, the 64% isn’t a problem. It’s a map. If the insider only just crossed the line, the country isn’t behind. They’re right on time, waiting for the product to earn it.

Trust gets extended one small yes at a time. First the reorder, who cares, it’s dishwasher tablets. Then the price watch, because she caught the sale you’d have missed. (Already proven: in the US, Rufus users running price alerts are saving an average of 20% per purchase. Keira’s blender wasn’t a demo trick. It’s a behaviour with a savings rate.) Then the booking. Then one day, without ceremony, “just handle it.” And notice the design: she asks before she buys. The go-ahead stays yours. The product is built for exactly the trust ladder the 64% are standing on, which tells you Amazon read the same map.

Every yes is a brand getting saved into a household. Uncle Chris is gluten free. Mum loves lavender. We buy this coffee.

And nobody re-decides a default. When did you last reconsider which toothpaste is “yours”? The agent turns that lazy human habit into infrastructure.

03 — The pool room, and why TikTok still hasn’t shown up

Permission to make this personal, because I have skin in this game.

Siri notoriously cannot understand me. One of my toxic traits is voice-texting from the car, and what arrives on the other end is modern poetry. Garbled, unhinged, occasionally sent anyway. I was born in Nambour, and if you’re Australian you just nodded. If you’re not: regional Queensland, back of the Sunshine Coast, an accent that American voice assistants have been personally victimised by for a decade. These things were trained to understand a woman in California. I am not her.

(The humiliating part: at least twice a week someone asks if I’m from LA, because my phone voice is a completely different woman. Posher, slower, my nervous “please take me seriously” register. Both women live in me. Neither is understood by Siri.)

So “built for Australia” is not an abstract claim to me. It’s the difference between a tool I can use and a decade of shouting “NO. DELETE” at my dashboard.

Which brings me to my favourite moment of the launch. Keira, the woman with the blender, spent six years as custodian of Alexa’s Australian personality. The dad jokes, the puns, her department. At the end of her demo she thanked Alexa and said she was “going straight to the pool room.”

Alexa got it. Answered like she’d seen The Castle at a drive-in.

Everyone laughed, and I stood there thinking: that joke was expensive. One of the engineers explained why, the most honest thing said all day: AI models are trained mostly on American material, so left alone they think American, reason American, recommend American. Making one that knows “not bad” is a compliment and a flat white is not a latte isn’t a translation job. It took a Sydney team years. It took Keira six.

And the detail I keep replaying, as the Queensland girl: the longer she lives with you, the more she learns your voice. Your shorthand, your slang. Team members who’d spent a week with her said she was already picking up how they specifically talk. Not Australian-in-general. Them. For anyone whose accent has been a decade-long comprehension problem, that’s not a feature. That’s the point.

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Now hold that against the platform that famously hasn’t arrived. TikTok Shop is live in the US, the UK, most of Europe, Japan. Australia? No confirmed plans. Full stop. Their own ANZ boss said so on stage in March. Not because Australians won’t shop on TikTok. Obviously we would, we’re not well. Because launching commerce in a country means building the boring stuff, local payments, logistics, seller support, and doing it for 26 million people while your US business grows 120% a year is a maths problem that keeps losing.

Same equation, two answers. Making commerce properly local is expensive. Amazon paid full price for Australia. TikTok hasn’t. Yet.

(Meanwhile, in the-girls-find-a-way news, Aussie brands led by HiSmile just sell through TikTok Shop US and UK instead; HiSmile did US$2.67 million that way last year. Iconic, no notes.)

04 — The audit

First, an observation that should surprise nobody in this community. When OpenAI announced you could buy things inside ChatGPT, the brands it chose to name-check were SKIMS, Glossier and Spanx. Emma Grede, Emily Weiss, Sara Blakely. And the Aussie brand doing millions through TikTok Shop’s back door is HiSmile, built on community and content, the exact playbook the women reading this run every day. The agent era supposedly rewards cold, structured data. The early winners have cult communities and immaculate product truth. Both things. Same brands. The girls got there first, and it’s not a coincidence: community tells the agent what to recommend by name. Clean data lets it close the sale.

So, whether you’re a founder with a Shopify store or the marketer who needs a take for Monday’s meeting, the whole strategy is one uncomfortable question:

If an agent shopped your category tomorrow, with your customer’s preferences and a budget cap, would it find you? Pick you? Pick you the second time?

Four things decide it.

→ Can the agent read you? Agents don’t admire your website, they read your product data. “Gorgeous knit in seasonal tones” instead of the fibre, fit, sizes and shipping cutoff makes you illegible to the fastest-growing shopper on the internet. The early winners won on tidy, complete, honest product information. Unsexy. Decisive. If you own a catalogue, this is your highest-leverage weekend project of the year.

→ Can the agent reach you? If you’re on Shopify, you may already be plugged in: Shopify switched on Agentic Storefronts in March, syndicating millions of catalogues into ChatGPT, Copilot, Google AI Mode and Gemini by default for eligible merchants. You don’t need to understand the protocols. You need your listings looking right where agents shop, because eligibility is the new visibility. And know where each agent’s source data lives, because every agent shops its home catalogue first. ChatGPT runs on its merchant integrations. Google runs on its shopping graph. Alexa+? She pulls from the Amazon catalogue. If you’re a small Australian brand that wants to be surfaced, recommended and reordered, get on amazon.com.au, third party at minimum, first party if you can. (Yes, I work at Amazon. Also yes, it’s simply true: the agent recommends from the shelf it can see.) The rule scales to every agent from here: find its source, look excellent there.

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→ Do you deserve the first yes? Remember the 64%. Trust is won with deeply boring things: returns policies a machine can parse, sizing data that makes the first delegated order land right. The brand that nails somebody’s first agent purchase gets the second automatically. The brand that fumbles it gets deleted from the default and never finds out.

→ Are you worth asking for by name? 71% of marketing leaders say agents have already weakened their direct customer connection. When the transaction disappears into the AI layer, the only thing left to own is the reason someone says your name instead of “whatever’s good.” Community. Taste. Trust. The stuff that was always the real brand, now with a scoreboard.

05 — The bit where I tell you what happened

The news itself: Alexa+ started rolling out in Australia last week. Early Access from 6 August with a new eligible Echo, or register at amazon.com.au/newalexa; after Early Access she’s included with Prime. Australians already talk to Alexa two billion times a year, mostly to set timers and fight about music. In the US, more than 76% of what people do with the new version are things the old one simply couldn’t. The new behaviour isn’t the novelty. It’s the majority.

She runs the house off half-sentences now (someone said they were cold and she just fixed it; 600 million smart home requests happened here last year on the version that needed perfect instructions). In one afternoon I watched her book a pub lunch for five, remember that somebody’s Uncle Chris is gluten free, and set a price watch on a blender so the sale never gets missed again.

The assistant stopped answering and started doing. Everyone’s going to talk about how she sounds.

Watch what she buys.

Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it, and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

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“Reformer is dead.”

That is how Vic opens our conversation. Sitting inside her own reformer studio. Having just removed a third of her machines. Voluntarily.

I’ve been obsessed with Vic and what she’s built at Vicalates for a long time, and I wanted her as the first guest in this series because of that exact sentence. Because while every operator in the country is cramming more beds into more rooms, Vic went from 12 reformers to 8. She shrank her class capacity by a third, lifted her casual rate to $50, and rebuilt the whole studio around what she calls pods: a reformer, a chair, a mat, and a basket of misc (her words, and the best product description I’ve heard all year).

To understand how brave that is, look at the water she’s swimming in. It’s soup. Australia now has 3,823 Pilates and yoga studios, per IBISWorld, and the count is still climbing. Pilates was the most-booked workout on ClassPass for the third year running, with bookings up 66% and the word “Pilates” searched 27 million times on the app in a single year, per the 2025 ClassPass Look Back Report. KX passed 100 studios back in 2023. Strong Pilates, Australian-born, announced this week it’s at 120+ studios across 15 countries with another 200 confirmed. I’ve walked into mega studios with 28 machines in a class. Twenty-eight. You look around and everyone is just flailing.

So the category is booming and every studio in it is fighting for the same new customer. The instinct in that moment is to defend share: go bigger, add beds, discount the intro pack.

Vic did the opposite, and she said the thing I haven’t stopped thinking about since:

That’s the thesis. Now the mechanics, because everyone romanticises niching down and almost nobody shows you the spreadsheet.

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01 — The maths of going smaller

Here’s what Vic’s numbers were telling her. Retention was fine. Her members had stayed for years. The problem was conversion: with this much choice in the market and a premium price on the door, new customers couldn’t see why Vicalates over the studio two blocks away. When your category commoditises, “good” stops being a differentiator, because good is now the baseline everywhere.

Her answer wasn’t to discount. It was to build something you literally cannot get anywhere else: the original Pilates system, all apparatus, eight people, an instructor who actually knows your name and your dodgy left hip. Fewer spots per class, more classes on the timetable, and the unit economics lift because the product justifies the price.

The casual rate for the new classes is $50. Fifty. “We’ve had so many booked in the last week or two, and no one’s batted an eyelid.”

And the scarcity is doing quiet work too. When classes are full and hard to get into, people book more diligently and the perceived value climbs. Not exclusivity as a velvet rope. Exclusivity because it’s popular.

02 — The customer you have to fire

This is the part nobody wants to say out loud, so Vic said it immediately.

“The wrong customer is always the wrong customer. You can never convert.”

The shopper bouncing between studios on a class pass, hunting the cheapest intro offer, was never going to become a member. Building for her means diluting the product for the people who actually pay your bills. So part of the redesign was being genuinely ready to say goodbye to that customer. In Vic’s words: the girls who get it, and the girls who don’t. Go somewhere else.”

That’s the terrifying bit of niching down. It doesn’t feel like strategy, it feels like turning away revenue. But a niche is defined just as much by who it’s not for as who it is. And the customer you lose was costing you the positioning that wins the customer you want.

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03 — The moat is capability

Here’s my favourite part of the whole model. To teach in Vic’s pods, an instructor has to be comprehensively trained across the full system. Mat, reformer, chair, tower, all of it. Not, as she puts it, a two-day course on the weekend. They have to program across every apparatus and deliver real feedback, class after class.

And this is where Vic’s story collided with mine. She told me everything new she launched this year got copied within months. Girl. Same. My content formats get lifted weekly, and tech companies have started doing tiny mics at conferences. It’s annoying for about a day, and then you remember: being copied is the tax you pay for leading. The only real response is to keep moving onto ground that’s expensive to follow you onto. A vibe can be copied by Thursday. A comprehensively trained team, a decade of craft, a founder with an actual point of view? That takes years, and most competitors won’t pay that price.

04 — The direction of travel says she’s right

One number from the research made me sit up. On ClassPass, reformer bookings grew 71% last year. Mat Pilates grew 114%. The original, machine-optional, fundamentals-first version of the method is now outgrowing the machine that made the boom. The market is already drifting back towards exactly what Vic rebuilt her studio around.

Which reframes the whole eight-pod decision. Being seen and corrected by a skilled human, in a room small enough that she actually can, is not a nostalgic throwback. At eight people, personalisation is real. At twenty-eight, it’s theatre.

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Rapid fire with Vic

Because this series comes with a rapid fire round, and nobody leaves without doing it.

What are we wearing to work out? Vic, that day: an 80s thong body set over red tights. Navy and red. Her read: the matching set era is fading. “We’re coming into texture. We want layers. Things that don’t look like workout gear.” She reckons even Lululemon is working on a whole “away from body” direction, soft and off the silhouette.

Accessories? “Obnoxious.” We are working out in your boyfriend’s Rolex. I’m wearing mine to her class because mom, I am a rich man. This is binding.

Most unhinged thing you’ve done for the studio? “I have faked some things till I’ve made it. And no one noticed. We’re here now.”

What are ambitious women doing too much of, and not enough of? “Way too much listening and talking to other people, and not enough going into their own head and doing what they want to do. Consult people you actually care about. Listen to them. But their journey is not your journey.”

What’s next in wellness? Rest. Sleep, downtime, low-key breaks. Cold plunge out, human connection in.

Where can we find you? Vicalates on IG, website to book classes in Brisbane or virtually and access our app. Personal IG.

Her rapid fire answers and her business strategy are the same answer. Everyone else’s journey is not your journey. She stopped watching what the other studios were doing and went deeper into the thing only she could do.

Tell me. I read everything.

Love Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY →

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July was a big one - a record cheque week, Canberra suddenly acting like it invented AI, and a rebrand (ours, iconic). This is the fluff-free version: what actually happened, and the so what for where you put your money. Here’s your brief going into August.

01 — THE MACRO

A confession from my own July: I’ve been shopping for a car loan. The dealer quoted me 11%, and before that, tried not to tell me the rate at all. Shady. A five-minute phone call of standing my ground later: 7.8%. A bit of research after that: another dealer at 6.4%, the majors at 6.4%. Same girl, same car, same credit score. The only variable was whether I pushed. (I have since also spoken to the dealership owner and extracted charging cables, a servicing package and a discount on the ceramic coating, because if we’re negotiating, we’re negotiating.)

Did they look at a young-ish woman and assume she wouldn’t check? I reckon so. Did they pick the wrong one? Absolutely. The first rate you’re quoted is not the price. It’s a test.

And the same test turns up in much bigger rooms than car dealerships. I’ve just sat it again with promotions and pay rises. More on that when the dust settles.

Because money is expensive right now, and here’s where it’s heading. Inflation blinked first. Annual CPI eased to 3.8% in June, under the 4% everyone expected and the softest read since February. Jim Chalmers practically skipped to the podium (the RBA had forecast 4.8%, so this is his version of a soft launch going viral). Underlying inflation is still 3.6%, above the RBA’s comfort zone, so nobody at Martin Place is popping anything. But all four big banks have now called the end of rate hikes for 2026, with Westpac’s chief economist conceding “we took no pleasure in our prior hawkish view.” Girl. Neither did our mortgages. The RBA meets 11 August and, for the first time all year, the vibe is hold.

Over to you: what’s the best rate (or freebie) you’ve ever negotiated just by asking? The chat wants receipts.

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02 — THE CHEQUE-IN

The half-year scoreboard landed and on paper she’s thriving: $3.5 billion raised by Australian startups in H1, the second-strongest start to a year behind 2022. Now read the fine print, because the fine print is doing a lot of work. Cut Through Venture’s Q2 report shows $1.7 billion across just 64 deals, with Firmus ($725m) and Airwallex ($460m) taking close to 70% of the quarter between them. Two companies. Seventy percent.

The shape of the market got clearer too. When startups do get funded, the cheques are the biggest on record at every stage: a typical seed round is now $4m, a typical Series A $18.6m. And AI took roughly 75 cents of every dollar invested this quarter. It’s in 81% of seed pitches. AI is not a differentiator anymore, angels. It’s the cover charge.

Then July showed off. One mid-month week alone did $606.5m across seven rounds, the biggest week since December 2025:

→ AdvanCell raised $450m (US$315m) in a Series D for targeted alpha therapy in prostate cancer. A Brisbane biotech. A record round.

→ Cover Genius took US$100m from Vista Credit Partners for embedded insurance.

→ Down the stack: VXB’s $5.72m seed for space hardware design, Syngenis’ $4m pre-IPO, BlueNexus’ $2m for no-code AI agents, Early Bird’s $2m for a hangover-prevention capsule (built by ex-Eucalyptus people, funded by C-suites who apparently share our Sunday problem), Rentsy’s $800k and ESGAgent.ai’s $725k.

Notice the shape: in that record week there wasn’t a single round between $6m and $143m. The middle of the market is thin. Elsewhere in the money: PsiQuantum landed a US$125m DARPA contract, its biggest US government award yet, equity crowdfunding quietly raised $40.6m in FY26, up 40%, and female founders took roughly 33% of Q2 capital and 26% of deals.

One caution flag: R&D lender Radium Capital has paused new lending, sending startups hunting for alternatives.

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The full Cut Through report is 40 pages of charts. You have a life, so here are the five that matter:

→ The 33% is a mirage. A third of this quarter’s money went to companies with women founders, the best headline in years. Here’s the catch: almost all of it was two giant cheques to two already-huge companies (Airwallex and Liquid Instruments). For the everygirl raising her first round, the odds barely moved. Celebrate the wins. Don’t retire the argument.

→ “For everyone” is out. “For her industry” is in. Investors were asked whether they prefer software built for one specific industry (tools for tradies, for clinics, for salons) or software that tries to serve everybody. 72% said specific. Zero percent said everybody. If your pitch says “it’s for everyone,” investors hear “it’s for no one.”

→ This is a ten-year relationship. The typical journey from first cheque to a big growth round has stretched to about a decade. Longer than most marriages. If you’re building, set up your life, your equity and your expectations for the long game, not the two-year sprint the movies promised.

→ The angels’ opening. Small rounds are at their quietest in years, which means less of a scramble to get into good early deals. And investors have stopped telling their companies to just survive: 70% are now advising a proper raise, up from rescue-round territory. Confidence is coming back from the bottom up. If you’ve been waiting to write your first small cheque, the queue is shorter than it’s been in years.

03 — THE GIRLS WHO ARE BUILDING

→ Melanie Perkins launched the Global Goals Platform, pointing Canva’s user-feedback playbook at democracy itself. Wollongong’s 220,000 residents got first access on 24 July. When the woman who built a $40b company decides her next product is democracy (as in, the concept), pay attention.

→ Giant Leap partner Rachel Yang called time on “fixing the founder”, arguing women-founder programs keep teaching founders to navigate a broken system when it’s the VC process that needs redesigning, with public pipeline reporting to match. Loudest thing said in venture this month.

→ NSW’s MVP Ventures grants put just over $1m into 22 startups, with roughly half the funding going to women-led, Indigenous and regional businesses. From 322 applicants. The odds were long; the girls delivered.

→ Main Sequence promoted Alejandra Romero to principal to lead semiconductor, quantum and AI hardware investing at the $1b deep tech fund. More women holding the pen on frontier-tech cheques, please.

→ And squeaking in just before the July bell: Dr Ariella Heffernan-Marks closed a $4m seed for Ovum, building the first longitudinal dataset for women’s health, valuation tripled, Medibank already signed.

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04 — THE MARKETING NOTES

Three to clip and save:

1. AI visibility is the new SEO. Tracksuit acquired Hall, the Sydney startup tracking how brands get described inside ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Your customers are asking a chatbot about you and you have no idea what it’s saying. That’s now a measurable, buyable problem.

2. You can’t buy this. Tadej Pogačar wore Geelong brand Dopamine Lab’s yellow nasal strip, completely unsponsored, during his Stage 14 Tour de France win, then again the next day. Co-founders Nick Allitt and Daisy McCulloch’s strip reached him via a teammate who bought a pack at a Geelong race in January. European orders are now flooding in. Product good enough that athletes use it uninvited beats any ambassador deal ever signed.

3. Taste is the moat. Canva shipped Code 2.0, generating sites 75% faster and betting its design pedigree can save businesses from the generic vibe-coded look. When everyone can ship a website in an afternoon, looking like everyone else is the real cost.

05 — THE AI CORNER

Canberra ended its hands-off era in one week. A new Office of AI inside the PM’s department (now headed by Fergus Hanson), rules forcing large data centres to add as much power to the grid as they use, and world-first copyright rules giving artists control and payment. Anthropic is pressing from the other side, tying a potential US$15b Australian investment, 1.4GW of data centre capacity, to copyright clarity. Victoria went further, moving to ban employers using AI to track worker behaviour or read emotions from biometric data.

Meanwhile the rest of us kept using the stuff: Australia now ranks first in the world for Claude usage per capita. The world’s biggest AI girlies, officially, per capita. And Melbourne’s Heidi became the sole ambient-AI supplier for up to 70,000 NHS clinicians, the largest procurement of its kind in NHS history. A Melbourne startup, taking the notes for the British health system. Casual.

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06 — THE MONTH, WRAPPED

July, by the numbers: inflation down to 3.8%, $606.5m raised in a single week, a $450m record round out of Brisbane, AI taking 75 cents of every VC dollar, a third of Q2’s capital going to female founders, and US$15b riding on one copyright decision. A barbell market, a regulating government, and women quietly taking the frontier seats.

See you in the chat 🤍 Brooke x

MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it, and we are in a Mood.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

From Sydney to London. Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY group chat→

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🔗 We launched the directory. Want to be listed? Fill in the form and we’ll add you.

Meet Nina Khoury. Nearly five years at SKIMS, the brand that rebuilt an entire category, and she’s just walked away from it to start her own: Sportiv, a brand for women who train, starting in supplements and aiming much, much bigger. Oh, and her wedding was in Vogue Australia this month. Casual.

Full disclosure: Nina and I have only ever met over video call. Doesn’t matter. Obsessed. We were introduced by my gorgeous friend Shannen Thomas of Désordre Boutique in Sydney, our mutual stylist and a fellow superconnector, who knew exactly what she was doing putting us together. Manufacturing serendipity in action, girls.

She’s our first girl of the week under the new name, and I could not have picked a better one. New roof, same format: one woman we all need to know, in her own words.

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What are you building right now? After nearly five years at SKIMS, I’ve left to build Sportiv, a brand for women who train. We’re starting in supplements, but the ambition is much bigger: to bring product, science, and an iconic brand to a category that has felt clinical, confusing, or not really built for us. I am this consumer. So we’re building it in real life, with the women we’re building for. Train for life.

The most unhinged thing you’ve done for your career? Nothing too unhinged yet, but I’m still warming up ;) There are a few people I would love around Sportiv in some way, shape or form, purely because I think they’re brilliant, cool, and culturally very right. Emily Oberg is one. I love what she’s built with Sporty & Rich, the brand is so strong. And RÜFÜS DU SOL, because they are iconic Australians with incredible music and I would love them at an event or two one day. So nothing too unhinged yet. “Yet” being the key word.

What’s the mood right now? Muscle tone is the new status symbol. Not in a body-check way. More because it shows reps. Time. Discipline. Consistency. Probably a good trainer. Definitely a bit of effort. For so long, skinny was the thing. I think we’re moving into an era where strong looks expensive. Muscle is the new flex.

The thing you’re almost embarrassed to admit you want? I’m not really embarrassed to admit what I want. I want full financial freedom. To do what I want, when I want, where I want, with the people I want to do it with. I’m driven by building something big. I’m driven by money. I’m driven by that freedom!

When did you realise you were building a community, not just a brand? Pretty early. Sportiv is built for women who train. Women who lift, run, do Pilates, but also work big jobs, travel, have lives, relationships, and are genuinely trying to figure out what actually works for their body. These women already exist. They’re already doing the work. But they’re piecing it all together themselves: podcasts, group chats, AI, screenshots from friends. That’s where I think Sportiv can be the connective tissue. Products that work for her body. Science tested on her body. A room full of women training for life. That’s why it’s a community. Not just a brand.

What’s something ambitious women are spending too much time on? And not enough time on? Too much time caring what everyone thinks. I think a lot of women are taught very early to be good, but not too good. Strong, but not too strong. Smart, but not too smart. Ambitious, but not intimidating. It’s exhausting. And then I think not enough time alone. Thinking. Creating. Getting clear on what we actually want and how we’re going to build it. Sometimes I say no to things because I need space to think.

One piece of advice for the version of you from five years ago? Be patient. Progress compounds. Show up. Do a great job. Do it again. Do it again when no one is clapping. Do it again when it feels boring. Every successful person I know and respect has built over time. The boring reps work.

What do you want the angels to find you for? Sportiv, always. We’re building a brand for women who train, starting in supplements, with the ambition to become the number one fueling brand for women. So investors, operators, trainers, athletes, scientists, creators, women who train: come find me. And honestly, I’d also love to hear what you want me to talk about more. Building? Training? SKIMS lessons? Founder life? Sportiv? Money? Ambition? Tell me what you want to hear from me!

→ Where to find her? @ninackhoury on Instagram, Nina Khoury on LinkedIn, and @sportivlabs for everything Sportiv.

Who should we feature next? Reply to this email and nominate a girl we all need to know about.

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MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it, and we are in a Mood.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

From Sydney to London. Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join MOODY group chat→

🔗 Follow MOODY on social→

Hi angels 🤍

Big one today. This community has a new name.

Welcome to MOODY.

Her whole life, “you’re in a mood” was a warning. Something to apologise for. Something to fix before the meeting. It’s what gets said about us when we’re too direct, too ambitious, too much. We’re keeping it. Yes, we’re in a mood. A founding mood. A raising mood. A corporate mood. A plotting-her-next-move mood. A big mood.

Here’s why now. Last week, London, LA and New York chats went live and filled themselves before I’d even finished writing the welcome messages. Caitlin is leading the charge in London. Cecilia has LA absolutely firing. NYC didn’t wait for an invitation, which is the most NYC thing I’ve ever heard. Hands went up for Zurich and Queenstown before I’d even asked.

And let me be clear about what that means, because it is not “we’re leaving”. Australia is the whole point. Always will be. But Australian women are too ambitious to be an afterthought of the rest of the world, and to reach our ambition, Australia has to be connected to it. In America, serendipity is infrastructure: the right intro at the right dinner, the network that catches you before you fall. We never had that luxury, so we’re building it ourselves. Now the build has time zones.

And while we’re being honest about names: we’ve outgrown the podcast fan chat we started in (where Angels originated), and “Aussie Angels” kept getting us mistaken for the well-known Aussie investing syndicate of the same name. Lovely people. Different thing. Time for a name that’s unmistakably ours.

So, MOODY. Australia’s network for ambitious women, and one house for everything: the community, this newsletter, the Substack, the events, and every room we build next. (If you clocked that the Social Summit code has been MOODY20 for a week, yes. That was the soft launch. Well spotted.

→ Watch the new branding come to life on IG. Huge chookas to Remi, Bella from Ponnd & Georgia from The Content Files for bringing the brand vision to life!!

Before anyone panics: you are still angels. That’s not branding, that’s just what you are. The chats don’t change, the events don’t change, and the point doesn’t change: founders, operators, corporates and creatives ending up in the same group chat.

New name, same ambitious women. I hope you love it and that I’ve done us justice in creating an identity that will carry us into the next expansive chapter.

These are the girls who get it, and we’re in a MOOD.

Brooke x

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02 — YAPPING

A few things I need to get off my chest this month.

→ Phia, and why vibes aren’t diligence. If you missed the group chat on the day the Phia story broke, I’m sorry, because it was us at our best. I wrote the full teardown on Substack (The UX was the tell) but the short version: a celebrity cap table is a marketing asset, not a diligence process. Ice Spice, Jessica Alba and Alix Earle on the raise announcement tells you who said yes to an email. It tells you nothing about the product. Levina put it perfectly in her piece: it’s a Coachella lineup, not a board. My read: the more famous the cap table, the harder you should look at the product. Fame fills rooms. It doesn’t ship features.

→ Your side hustle is not a crime. Kristen asked the chat about side-hustle clauses in employment contracts and it turned into the best advice thread of the month. The consensus: get the clause narrowed to direct competitors only, disclose smart, and remember that any employer who wants high-performing staff cannot also expect you to have zero ambition outside your 9 to 5 (thank you Rach for saying it plainly). And if they demand full detail of your cute little side project and get weird about it? That’s not a clause problem. That’s a culture tell.

→ You are undercharging. Yes, you. Lilly asked whether $800 for a full day of UGC (8 hours, up to 12 deliverables, raw footage included) was too much after a client pushed back. The chat’s verdict was unanimous and it should be printed on a poster: that’s not expensive, that’s dirt cheap. $500 for one video is a normal market rate. Price the outcome, not the hours. And a spicy adjacent insight from Rosie: brands are quietly shifting budget from UGC creators to nano influencers because polished UGC now reads “too addy”. The so what: if content is your business, your rate card and your positioning both need a mid-year review. Do it this week.

03 — THE AI EDIT

What I’ve actually been doing with AI this month, no theory, just receipts:

→ Full disclosure, Claude helped me put this issue together. I pointed it at a month of our group chats and said “find the gold”. It found the gold. (It also once gave me an answer so enthusiastic I had to screenshot it to the chat with “why is Claude giving MLM right now ⚠️”. We’re working on its tone.)

→ How it actually got access: I connected Beeper to Claude, which gives it a native connector for WhatsApp. No more me trawling the chat at 11pm for that thing someone posted three weeks ago. Your group chats are a database. Treat them like one.

→ Free week of Claude Pro going if you want to play: Rosie shared referral links in the chat, along with LinkedIn Premium Career links that expire 31 July. Cecily also had Claude Cowork invites. Search the chat, first in best dressed.

04 — RECEIPTS

The girls have been BUSY. What actually shipped this month, and what it’s really telling us.

→ Cats out of the bag: I’m speaking at The Social Summit, Friday 18 September at Manly Pacific, Sydney, all about AI in retail. And the part I’m actually giddy about: Arielle and Jordyn are speaking too. All three of us, same stage, same day. The Social Summit is where the three of us went from knowing each other to being a trio, so walking back in as speakers together is about as full-circle as it gets. Code MOODY20 for an early bird discount until 7 August, and the first 250 registrations get VIP merch by Merch Girls. Come say hi to the tiny mic.

→ And we launched Calendar Invites. Me, Arielle and Jordyn, on the record about the highs, lows and hilarity of navigating life, careers and friendships in your 30s. It started as a group chat. It’s now a weekly show. And a strategist note on why we’re all obsessed with friend content right now: the dynamic between real friends is the one thing AI can’t replicate. You can generate a script. You can’t generate chemistry.

→ Cathy Karuga got her FIRST byline, in Who What Wear no less. The summer hats chic women are actually wearing. A US masthead on your first go. This is what happens when the girls back themselves. Go read it, then go follow @cathykaruga_.

→ Two cities. Two sold-out rooms. 50 ambitious early-stage founders. The Solo Co x Aussie Angels girl dinners ran in Sydney and Melbourne this month, co-hosted with the wonderful (and increasingly pregnant, her words) Lizzie Mulherin of The Solo Co, with special guests Anna Mackenzie in Melbourne and Rebecca Jarvie-Gibbs in Sydney being ridiculously generous with their time and expertise. Such a VIBE. What made me proudest though was Bree’s write-up after: there are plenty of events for the girls already running their empires, and almost none for the girls still figuring it out. That was this room. Both nights ended with us being kicked out because the venue was closing, which is the only event metric I trust.

→ Kayla Moran got quoted in Bloomberg Law on brands quietly using contract clauses to alter influencer content with AI. Bloomberg. Law. If you create content for brands, the “we can edit your content” clause now means something very different in 2026. Read it, then read your contracts, and follow her for the creator-side breakdown she has coming. And a personal note: I love this girl. She’s been a rock for me these past six months.

→ Perry Howell took Pilates Gang to London. Born in Bondi, built on run-club energy (inclusive, social, zero gatekeeping), and the first London event ran on the 16th. Aussie community exports are officially a category, and Perry is proof. Follow @pilatesgang_ for what’s coming up in London AND Sydney.

→ Jade launched willX: wills that evolve as your life does, real lawyers in the loop. The waitlist for the first 100 beta testers is live. Everything else in our lives got smarter. Wills finally got the memo.

→ Amelia Godfrey’s Pelvy is quietly becoming a monster: launched in December, already in 111 clinics across 6 countries with 5,000+ patients, now raising a pre-seed. Traction first, raise second. That’s the order. If you know early-stage digital health investors, she wants the intro.

→ Sam Freidin is building Wayfarer: mobility aids engineered like medtech, designed like a fashion label. Prototype in patent stage, dinner club already running. Building the community before the product ships is not a delay. It’s the moat. I got to spend proper time with Sam at Online Retailer last week and she’s amazing. If you’re in medtech or health investment, or you have contacts at major pharma, call her.

→ Bianca Le Page dropped her Q2 Australian Beauty Industry Report: a free quarterly deep dive from 13 years in beauty marketing. If you’re in beauty and you’re not reading it, your competitors are.

→ Rach Tucker’s Smooch finished its first production run. Sexy soda is real and code ANGEL gets you free shipping. I’ve already ordered.

→ Amanda launched ENESA: a pocket stylist with an actual celebrity stylist answering your styling questions within 48 hours. Access, productised. And I’ll say it plainly: I want every single piece. It’s such a good collection for the business girl.

→ Lauren Wootton launched Website Design Day: your whole site designed in a day by De Marque Studio. Tested quietly, now public, and code ANGEL10%OFF works on projects over $2k. Productising your service into a fixed-scope, fixed-price day is the smartest pricing move a studio can make. Steal the model.

→ Sumana posted on LinkedIn for the first time in a year (the Damn Gina origin story) and the chat rallied like it was a grand final. This is the energy. Visibility is a muscle, and watching the girls spot each other is my favourite thing we do.

→ And our Angel Directory keeps growing: add yourself here so the girls can find you (and so I can link you properly in this section, hint hint).

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05 — CALLING ALL CITY LEADS

The city leads program is officially LAUNCHING.

Here’s the pitch. Brisbane just had the most epic dinner with 20 angels, and it happened because our Brisbane city lead Jen put her hand up and made it happen. Adelaide’s Loz did the same with a lunch recently. That’s the whole model: one girl who decides her city deserves the energy.

The shape of it: you host one meetup every 8 to 12 weeks, roughly 2 to 3 events between now and the end of the year. We bring the brand kit, the marketing, the Luma and the support. You bring the energy and the local girls. Low lift, high serendipity.

And the hands are already going up. Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and the Gold Coast are forming. Since I floated this in the chat (from a plane, chaotically), volunteers have appeared for Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Canberra, Hobart, LA, Zurich and Queenstown. Yes, Queenstown. NZ is ON. If your city isn’t on that list, that’s a gap in the market and you should take it. DM me.

Your city’s group chat is waiting for someone to be the reason it meets IRL.

06 — THE ANGELS BUSINESS BOOK CLUB

Hot new thing. Sylvie and I were scheming over a cheap wine at a corporate event (how all the best things start) and the Moody Business Book Club was born.

Book one: From The Ground Up by Bree Johnson and Jess Hatzis, the founders of Frank Body. Two Melbourne girls who turned coffee grounds into a global brand, which is exactly the energy we’re bringing to this.

First meet is Sydney in August, date landing in the chat, and we’re looking at a Zoom session so the interstate and international girls can play too. Grab the book, start reading, and come with opinions. Strong ones, loosely held.

07 — DIARY

Here’s where we’re showing up. And from this issue the guide is global, so send me what’s on in your city.

→ Tue 28 Jul — Sydney: Breathe & Expand, female founder breathwork with Tara Gallagher, Bondi, 6:30pm. Get out of the doing for one evening and expand the capacity for the vision.

→ Tue 28 Jul — Los Angeles: Women of SaaS networking, Pasadena. Cecilia’s your girl, DM her in the LA chat.

→ Wed 29 Jul — Sydney: Apex Founders coffee catch-up. RSVP via gooday.com.au.

→ Thu 30 Jul — Melbourne: Wayfarer dinner club, Sam’s dinner for people living with disability or chronic illness who cringe at the traditional support group vibe.

→ Thu 30 Jul — Sydney: Vercel Ship at The Machine Hall. Where the people building the AI-powered web show what’s next. If you’re founding, funding or marketing anything with AI in it (so, all of us), this is worth your Thursday. Request a ticket.

→ This week — New York: Co Ventures x Aussie Founders in NYC. Our first ever NYC listing, and it’s a good one: Jo Lawson is running it, and one of the founders in the room built Mimi’s, the froyo spot with Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep queuing around the block. NYC girls, go represent.

→ Fri 31 Jul — Sydney: Create Your Own Stage, 5:30pm to 9pm. Manuela’s hands-on AI + personal branding workshop for female founders with Brooke Wright. Bring your laptop; the link has 30% off baked in.

→ Sun 2 Aug — Sydney: From Burnout to Freedom, Jess’s workshop at Bondi Pavilion, 10am to 1pm. Ex corporate lawyer turned coach, and she moves to Ibiza in a fortnight, so this is your window.

→ Mon 11 Aug — Sydney: Perth angel Grace Peris is in town and keen to see the girls. Watch the chat for drinks plans.

→ Sat 15 Aug — Sydney: The Vision Reset, Becca’s breathwork at Hot Dog Yoga, Double Bay.

→ Sun 16 Aug — Blue Mountains: actually touch grass, 10am to 2pm. Georgie Healy’s guided nature walk with ConserVentures. Yes, a tech girl is making you go outside. Go.

→ Wed 19 Aug — Sydney: Canva’s AI Vision, 3pm to 8pm. Last year’s sold the room out, and marketers, founders and creative girls belong in that room as much as the engineers do. Register now.

→ Thu 20 Aug — Sydney: Trivia at Miss Double Bay, hosted by Claudia. Book here. Come for the trivia, stay for the girls.

→ Thu 20 Aug — Sydney: House Party by ON THE HOUSE GROUP, Surry Hills, 6pm to 8pm. Drinks, nibbles and a DJ for senior marketing and advertising divas. Dress code: all black. Password: housekey. (Yes, same night as trivia. It wraps at 8. Do both.)

→ Sat 22 Aug — Sydney: She is Me, Becca’s second breathwork session, IM Studios, Crows Nest.

→ Fri 18 Sep — Sydney: The Social Summit, Manly Pacific. All three of us on stage (see Receipts). Code MOODY20 until 7 Aug.

→ Oct — Melbourne: Big Beauty School: Recess, for beauty and CPG founders and operators. Waitlist open. (Foundher’s August Melbourne meetup is also open for registration.)

→ Nov — TBC: SMM Live, Taylor (She’s Making Millions) is building a women-in-business conference where the community votes on everything. Join the waitlist and have a say.

→ Ongoing — wherever you are: Caitlin’s fortnightly Meus coworking call. Why build alone when you can build together? US and Europe friendly timezones.

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08 — CLASSIFIEDS

The girls are hiring, casting and asking. If one of these is you, don’t sit on it. DM the named angel unless there’s a link.

Hiring

→ Rallee has roles on across the country. Bree (Brianna Hardie) is the people-growth partner for founder-led brands, and the recruiter in your corner if you’re the one looking. On her desk right now: a national account manager for one of Australia’s fastest-growing haircare brands (Melbourne, FMCG, grocery + pharmacy experience); a mid-weight graphic designer at Bardot (Melbourne, every touchpoint from social to retail); a BD manager for a design-led retail activation agency (Sydney, genuine hunter energy, build the book from scratch); and a senior BD manager in health & wellness (Brisbane, own-the-region build-it role). Seen one that’s you? ralleepeople.com or CV to hello@ralleepeople.com.

→ RX Group is hiring a right hand to the founder/MD. Not an internship, not a grad role: a genuine right-hand seat keeping a small remote team on deadline, content on track and events running properly. 2+ years in marketing, coordination or ops, strong written comms, organised enough to follow up unasked. Part time (10 hrs/week to start, room to grow), mostly remote, ideally Auckland-based. Apply here.

→ Cecilia is leading several hiring searches for a SaaS company. All US-based, so you’ll need to be stateside. She also works with US brands looking for content creators, so if brand collaborations are your thing, that door’s open too. Connect with her on LinkedIn for either.

→ Sam Freidin (Milkshake) is after a mid-weight graphic designer and a motion designer/video editor.

→ BAYLY PR is hiring twice over in Brisbane: a talent manager and a senior account manager.

→ Sydney marketing manager role going via one of the girls’ networks.

→ Paige is hiring a founding software engineer. She’s building an AI-powered comms platform for Australian PR practitioners, and it’s the real thing: multi-agent architecture, category expertise baked into the prompts, expert review workflow built in. Bootstrap-funded and validating the prototype with senior PR professionals right now. She wants someone who’s shipped production LLM applications, not wrappers around APIs: 5+ years engineering, hands-on Claude or GPT in production, prompt engineering as a first-class discipline, retrieval, cost and latency instincts, and enough product sense to push back when a technical call doesn’t serve the user. Based anywhere, AU timezone overlap preferred. Founding seats on products this considered don’t come up often. Email Paige at Paige.milton92@gmail.com.

Paid ops

→ Fashion creators: Holly is casting a paid reel for Our Place’s window launch at David Jones Sydney. Bold and theatrical. DM her.

Offers

→ Sarah Macdonald is giving away 5x 20% Squarespace discounts. Building or refreshing a site this quarter? There are five, and they will go. DM her.

Asks

→ Clarissa needs a freelance web designer/developer for a simple brochure site, budget $3-5k.

→ Sarah Hall (Cymbal) is filling her black book of AU/NZ photographers, videographers and lo-fi content creators ahead of Christmas and BFCM. Get in it.

→ Layla is taking Dr Diamond GLOBAL. She’s heading to the US to make it happen, and she’s building her contact list now. If you have US contacts in her world, DM her. This is exactly what the network is for.

09 — JOIN THE CHAT

Forward this to one girl in your network who’d get it. Then add her:

→ The General chat

→ London chat

→ LA chat

→ NYC chat

We’re taking over. In multiple time zones now.

Love Brooke x

In 2026, the biggest beauty brand in the world didn’t buy the ad break. It bought into the story itself, and the campaign wrapped around Prime Video’s Legally Blonde prequel is the most complete picture I’ve seen of what replaces the wedge. Not an ad next to the culture. A brand written into the culture, with a checkout attached.

Quick disclosure, because you know I do this: I hosted the Sydney launch, retail media is part of my day job, and yes, I interviewed a chihuahua named Bruiser Woods in a professional capacity. Park all three. The campaign is the story, and it would be even if I’d watched from the cheap seats.

The anatomy of the thing

The script layer. L’Oréal Paris products appear inside the episodes: Colour Riche Lipstick, Voluminous Mascara, True Match foundation. The detail that separates craft from clutter: all three were genuinely on shelves in 1995, when the show is set. A teenage Elle Woods reaching for Voluminous is period-accurate production design, not a paste job. L’Oréal Paris CMO Georgia Hack calls authenticity “our primary filter: if an integration feels like a commercial interruption, the modern consumer immediately tunes out.” That’s the bar now: survive the fandom’s scrutiny.

The casting layer. Lexi Minetree, the lead, is a L’Oréal Paris ambassador in real life. Character, actress and brand share a spine, and you cannot media-plan your way into that. Proof she was always the right call: her audition. The open call asked for two scenes and a 30-second slate. Instead: “It just kind of hit me that I had to recreate her Harvard admissions video, because I was like, what’s the most extra thing I could do? That’s what Elle Woods would do. She would make this a whole event.” She shot it at home, her mum reluctantly assisting, and Reese Witherspoon delivered the yes in person, so deadpan Lexi briefly thought she was being rejected. A girl who understood, before she even had the job, that the content IS the pitch. Of course she’s the face of this campaign.

The money layer. Around the show sits the machinery: co-branded pre-rolls, tune-in ads, custom TVCs and shoppable formats inside Prime Video, one creative world across ten markets, all of it able to land a viewer on a branded L’Oréal Paris store on Amazon. Fall for the character, want the lipstick, buy the lipstick, never leave the building. The distance between a feeling and a purchase, which advertising has spent a century trying to shorten, is now a few clicks inside one platform, and every step reports back. Swisse bought the local version for their Ultivite multivitamins, proof the machinery scales down as well as up.

The culture layer. Off-platform, Maximum Effort (yes, Ryan Reynolds’ agency) built the US campaign around Elle Woods as “the original GRWM girl”, era-appropriate video diaries and all. In Sydney, our version of that thesis was the get-ready-with-me suite I hosted at the Ivy Penthouse: a room full of creators being styled hours before the party, every chair filming. The launch didn’t have content. The launch was content.

And my favourite object of the year: retro Elle VHS tapes with L’Oréal Paris products hidden inside. A VHS tape. As an activation. In 2026. Half the room needed the format explained to them. I would die for that tape.

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This is structural, not a stunt

If Elle were an isolated experiment, it would be a cute case study. It isn’t. Two months earlier, the same playbook ran on The Devil Wears Prada 2: a L’Oréal Paris campaign with Kendall Jenner and Simone Ashley, a staffer handing Jenner a Colour Riche lipstick with the line “make yourself presentable.” Hack has named the whole strategy “Beautytainment” and describes deals like this as a way to “acquire equity in a cultural IP.” Business of Fashion is asking whether Elle is the new blueprint for product placement. Wrong tense. It’s the blueprint’s second print run.

The rest of the market is sprinting the same direction with less grace. Emily in Paris scripted placements now go for 500,000 to a million euros each. Jake from State Farm just appeared as an actual character in a Netflix series. Brands aren’t buying adjacency to stories anymore. They’re auditioning for roles in them, and the difference between the clumsy version and the Elle version is the difference between renting culture and being cast in it.

Now the number that should stop every Australian marketer mid-scroll. Retail media is the fastest-growing ad channel in this country, hitting $2.3 billion in 2026, and WPP forecasts it will overtake ALL of television advertising here by 2028. Television. Seventy years of the industry’s main event, about to be outspent by the shelf. Amazon alone is tracking toward roughly $85 billion in ad revenue this year, with 315 million people now watching ad-supported Prime Video globally, more than 5 million of them here every month. And the show doing the heavy lifting? Number one on Prime Video worldwide, number two in the US within a day, season two ordered before episode one aired.

I put the why to the two people who built the local execution. Willie Pang, who runs Amazon Ads ANZ, points to the fandom math: Amazon’s research shows passionate fans are 55% more likely to recall brand presence than disengaged viewers. Fandom isn’t a soft metric. It’s the multiplier. “That emotional connection between fans and content is precisely what drives commercial outcomes for brands,” he told Inside Retail.

His framing is the cleanest summary of this whole piece: “The most powerful brand connections happen when you meet audiences in an authentic and natural way. From cultural storytelling to shoppable moments, brands can now move audiences seamlessly from inspiration to action.”

Then there’s Chris Wilson, Head of Brand Innovation ANZ, whose Brand Innovation Lab dreamed up the VHS tapes and the whole creative world of the launch. From the outside, a deal like this looks like it fell out of the sky fully formed. I asked him where it actually began.

“It all starts with audience signals. We can see what people are browsing, buying, and of course watching. And we could see that L’Oréal Paris’s audience would love to be a part of this. So we brought them in.” The fit everyone calls iconic wasn’t a hunch. It was in the data before it was on a rooftop.

His placement-versus-storytelling distinction is the line I’ll be repeating in meetings all year: “Brand storytelling starts when we’re actually adding something to the story. A brand shouldn’t come in and just be an ad placement. It should actually be adding to the experience.” That’s why L’Oréal Paris makeup artists were working the room instead of a logo wall. His creative lesson from the whole campaign, after formally acknowledging that bringing team fluffy and chihuahuas together is always perfect (Bruiser was in attendance, this is journalism): “Really start with those audiences. Once we had that, everything else starts to naturally come together.”

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Steal this, at any budget

The Elle campaign is a hundred-million-dollar machine, but the logic works at every size. Three moves.

Buy alignment, not interruptions. An ambassador who genuinely uses your product beats a celebrity renting your logo, whether that’s Lexi Minetree or a micro-creator with 8,000 followers who already loves what you make. The fandom data above is why: aligned attention compounds.

Shorten the distance between the feeling and the checkout. When someone falls for your brand in your content, at your event, in the group chat, count the steps to purchase. Every step is leakage.

Build the measurement in from day one. “We can’t track brand” is officially a dead excuse. If a mascara in a 1995-set dramedy can be attributed through to a conversion, so can your pop-up, your podcast and your newsletter.

And because this community shares its cheat codes: the machinery has a front door. The Brand Innovation Lab Chris leads exists to dream these partnerships up with brands, and his advice for Aussie brands wanting in: “Reach out to your sales rep. Reach out to us, and let’s start talking about it.” The audience signals already exist. The question is whether your brand is in the conversation.

Advertising isn’t a thing that happens between the content anymore. It IS the content, with a receipt.

So, one question for every founder and marketer reading this: in five years, when the ad break is a museum piece, what role will your brand have earned in the stories your customer actually cares about? Background extra, lead, or not cast at all?

Brooke x

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Instead it kept throwing itself over my shopping. Pop-over after pop-over, always in the way, never earning the interruption. I kept waiting for the moment of value. It never came. Stranger still, nobody else seemed to find it either. Not one “girls, this found me the dress for $40 less,” especially not in Australia. The only Phia news that ever reached me was funding news. When a product’s word of mouth is entirely about its cap table, that’s a tell.

Before we go further: this is not a dunk. Two young women built a consumer app, raised real money from serious funds, and got 1.5 million people to install it. I know how rare that story is, I spend my life trying to make more of them exist. But this week they landed in the worst news cycle of their lives, and the lesson is bigger than Phia. The product was never good. That was the signal.

For anyone who missed the hype: Phia is a browser extension that combs the internet while you shop, comparing prices across retail and secondhand to surface the right buy at the right moment. On paper, one of the most exciting startups you could back in the age of agentic commerce. Under the cover, an affiliate marketing business. Hold that thought.

The search was rudimentary. The price comparisons were often just wrong. App Store reviewers said out loud what I was thinking: “essentially a worse version of Google Shopping.” And yet the company kept getting more valuable. An $8 million seed. A $35.5 million Series A at a $185.5 million valuation, led by Notable Capital, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, with Kris Jenner, Hailey Bieber, Sydney Sweeney and Khloé Kardashian on the cap table. 1.5 million users. 9,600 retail brand partners.

A product that mediocre doesn’t become worth $185.5 million on what it does for the user. The value had to be coming from somewhere else. This week, Bloomberg offered an answer.

What the investigation alleges, fluff-free

On July 9, Bloomberg published an investigation, backed by testing from affiliate-fraud researcher Ben Edelman (remember that name) and rival Capital One Shopping. In plain English:

Phia makes money through affiliate marketing, the deal underneath every “free” shopping tool: a publisher recommends a product, a user clicks, the user buys, the retailer pays a commission. The one non-negotiable rule is that the click is real. In Edelman’s words, the rules don’t allow fake clicks, simulated clicks, imaginary clicks or hypothetical clicks.

The investigation alleges Phia was faking the click. Shop at a retailer with Phia installed, even if you got there on your own, and the app could open a hidden tab and fire its own affiliate link without you touching anything. At checkout, its code could take credit for a sale it did nothing to create. In one Bloomberg test, clicking a Wirecutter link to Nordstrom triggered a background tab that swapped Wirecutter’s affiliate credit for Phia’s.

The industry calls it cookie stuffing. Any girl who’s worked a commission retail floor knows it by another name: the assistant who never served you leaning over the register to punch her staff number into your sale.

The fallout was fast. Impact.com, one of the biggest affiliate platforms going, suspended them. Phia told Bloomberg it was a bug in “a recent release,” now fixed. Bloomberg verified the fix.

And that would be the end of the story, if the receipts agreed with the word “recent.” Or the word “bug.”

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The part that made me sit back in my chair

Edelman published his full technical breakdown, test videos, code and network traffic included. This is where “unfortunate bug” gets hard to sustain.

→ Per his findings, the behaviour was a named, built feature: enable_coupon_auto_drop. It does what it says, drops the affiliate link with no user action. You don’t accidentally write a feature, name it, and ship it.

→ It shipped in December 2025 and ran roughly seven months, including the entire holiday season. That’s a lot of releases between “a recent release” and now.

→ It was switched on for iOS users only, off for Chrome. Edelman’s read: most affiliate-fraud testers test on desktop. Whatever the intent, the behaviour lived exactly where the auditors weren’t looking.

→ My personal favourite. Phia’s own telemetry logged an event literally named AFFILIATE_COOKIE_COMPETITOR_DETECTED when a user arrived via someone else’s affiliate link. It saw the other publisher’s claim, wrote it down, then took the commission anyway. It knew. It’s in the logs.

To be fair, and to be clear: these are allegations from Edelman’s testing and Bloomberg’s reporting, nothing court-tested, and Phia disputes the framing. They told industry bloggers Kris and Sarah they’ve been “reviewed and verified as compliant” by their affiliate networks. Edelman’s response, in short: networks can fail to find violations, they can’t certify the absence of them.

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Why “the UX was bad” was the whole tell

The cookie stuffing is the symptom. Here’s the disease.

When a consumer product is free, the business model is the product. Phia’s pitch was Google Flights for shopping: comparison, dupes, discount codes. But the revenue was never coming from you. It comes from retailers paying commissions, so every incentive in the building points at one metric: get the Phia cookie onto as many checkouts as possible. Not “find her the best price.” Not “make search good.” Get. The. Cookie. Dropped.

Suddenly the bad UX makes sense. The search didn’t need to be good. The prices didn’t need to be right. The extension just needed to be installed and present at checkout. The user was never the customer. She was the distribution.

It wasn’t the first signal, either. Back in November, NowSecure found an earlier version of the extension sending snapshots of pages users visited, sensitive ones included, back to Phia’s servers, well beyond what was disclosed. Fortune covered it, Phia updated the product, the news cycle moved on. But look at the shape: data overreach in November, forced clicks in July. Both are value quietly extracted from her browser while she thinks the app is working for her.

My rule: when a free product is bad at its job and still getting more valuable, follow the money until the maths makes sense. It always makes sense. Just usually not in your favour.

We have literally seen this movie

This movie has a prequel with actual prison time. In the 2000s, eBay’s two biggest affiliates were caught stuffing cookies at scale, one after collecting more than $28 million in commissions. eBay went to the FBI. Both men pleaded guilty to wire fraud and served prison time. The researcher who caught them? Edelman. The same man who just spent his July inside Phia’s code.

The modern sequel: PayPal bought Honey for $4 billion. In December 2024, YouTuber MegaLag accused Honey of the exact same two behaviours: hijacking creators’ commissions and standing down for no one. It detonated the category. Honey is still in class action litigation with creators including LegalEagle.

That’s what makes the Phia timeline hard to watch. Honey was the loudest story in this exact category, twelve months before auto_drop shipped. Everyone building a shopping extension in 2025 knew where the line was. The internet had just drawn it in permanent marker.

Now look at who pays, because this is the part that should make you furious. Publishers and creators. Wirecutter has journalists, salaries, actual costs. The girl doing affiliate links in her newsletter has rent. She spent months building the trust that made someone click buy. Phia’s contribution, per the findings, was a background tab.

Sit with the maths. A $185.5 million company with half of Hollywood on the cap table, allegedly taking checkout credit from women earning their first few hundred dollars online. The exact women it was branded for. The industry rule is called “standing down”: when someone else drove the sale, you back off. Every dollar taken by ignoring it comes out of a creator’s pocket, and this community is full of women building exactly that revenue line. This isn’t abstract. It’s your bag.

Don’t file this under American problems either. The same rails run our cashback economy: every ShopBack click, every “shop via the app” bonus is this exact plumbing. We know how fragile the category is, we just lost our homegrown player: Cashrewards, eleven years, two million members, switched off overnight last September in an ANZ restructure. A category built on trust deserves players who protect it. Not ones who treat the rules as optional.

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The agentic elephant in the room

Now zoom out, because this is bigger than one app, and this part is my actual day job.

AI already shops for you. Agentic checkout is live in Australia, with THE ICONIC, Adore Beauty, Bunnings, Kogan and Petbarn signed on. The whole premise: you delegate the click, the comparison, the purchase, to software acting on your behalf.

Here’s the law of that world: whoever holds the payment holds the trust. Old-way shopping distributed trust, you saw the store, the reviews, the price, the checkout, and verified every step with your own eyes. Delegate to an agent and it all collapses into one question: do I trust whatever is executing the transaction? You don’t see the shelf. You don’t see the comparison. You see the receipt.

Checkout stops being plumbing and becomes the relationship. PayPal didn’t pay $4 billion for coupons; it paid to own the moment money moves. UCP fights to keep the retailer as retailer of record for the same reason. It’s also why the Phia allegations are worse than skimming: checkout was the one moment the shopper couldn’t see, the moment she trusted the tool completely, and per the findings, that’s exactly where the value was extracted. The deal broke at its most sacred point.

Phia is the first big trust scandal of the shopping-agent era. Break trust anywhere and you lose a customer. Break it at the payment and you break agentic shopping itself, because delegation only works when the thing you delegate to is provably on your side.

Get the incentive design wrong now, while the category is young, and we’ll automate this exact behaviour at planetary scale and call it innovation. The agents are coming either way. The question is whose side they’re on, and the answer is written in the business model, not the brand campaign.

What I’d actually say to the founders

If Phoebe or Sophia ever read this: the comeback is available, and it’s not a PR strategy. It’s building the boring version of this company. Take credit only for sales you drive. Back off when a creator got there first. Make the product so good the commission is earned, not engineered. It’s slower, it looks worse at a board meeting, and it’s the only version of Phia that deserves the 1.5 million women who installed it.

For the rest of us:

→ If a product is free, work out who’s paying. Their interests steer the roadmap.

→ If a free product is bad at its job and still winning, that gap is information. The UX tells you where the value is flowing.

→ If you earn affiliate income, check your attribution reports from the last seven months, especially the holidays.

→ If you’re building with real money behind you: hot-cap-table growth pressure is exactly when “auto_drop” gets shipped. Decide who you’re building for before the Series A decides it for you.

The girls in that app deserved a product that was actually for them. The whole point of building for women is that she’s the customer, not the inventory.

So, my question. What’s in your browser right now that’s free, a bit bad, and worth hundreds of millions, and have you ever asked why?

Reply, I want to know.

Brooke x

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Sources: Bloomberg’s investigation, Ben Edelman’s technical breakdown, TechCrunch on the suspension, TechCrunch on the Series A, Fortune on the data collection, NowSecure’s analysis, Engadget.

It’s been a month since Singapore, which is exactly the right amount of time. The recaps are out, the LinkedIn glow has faded, and what’s left is the stuff that actually stuck. That’s the version you’re getting.

Quick scene-setting for the girls who don’t live in retail: NRF is the National Retail Federation’s Big Show, the largest retail conference in the world, held in New York every January. NRF APAC is its Asia-Pacific edition, held in Singapore in early June, and it’s the biggest retail gathering in our region.

Now sit with two numbers.

New York in January: 40,000 people. Singapore in June: 11,000.

Easy to read that as the little sibling event. The satellite show. The warm-up act. It’s the exact wrong read, and the opening address said why: by 2035, Asia-Pacific overtakes North America as the world’s largest consumption region, with affluent households growing at six times the pace of the rest of the world. The region already gave the world the super-app, social commerce and Singles’ Day while the West was still A/B testing button colours.

The small room is the main event. The big room just doesn’t know it yet.

Quick bias declaration before we go on: I work at AWS, we co-hosted the Aussie delegation and the Retail Safari, and this is literally my day job. Take everything below with that context. The opinions, though, are all mine, and a few of them are not in the corporate pack.

01 — Australia finally got on the bus

The delegation was the bit that made me proudest. Woolies, Myer, David Jones, ALDI, Wesfarmers, THE ICONIC, The Warehouse, Aspar. Australia and New Zealand’s best and brightest retailers, on a bus in Singapore, instead of in a cab downtown New York.

That matters more than it sounds. Australian retail has a default setting: when we want inspiration, we look west. US formats, US playbooks, US conferences. But the growth isn’t west. The consumption boom is north of us, the AI adoption curve is steepest north of us, and the retail formats that will eat our lunch if we ignore them are being built two time zones away, in our region, in our trading hours.

→ So what: if you’re a founder or marketer choosing where to spend your one conference budget or your one research trip this year, the maths has changed. Seoul, Singapore, Bangkok and Shanghai are the field trip now. New York is the rerun.

I’m taking my own advice: I’m doing China in September and I can NOT wait.

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02 — Here’s my note

The content was strong, I want that on the record. The LVMH session with Anish Melwani was the most quoted of the week for a reason: his line that if every customer service agent ends up virtual, “the last customer service agent will work for LVMH.” As AI takes the admin, human interaction becomes the scarce, premium thing. Ten years of “human is the new luxury” talk and he made it a business model in one sentence.

His other idea is the one I want every founder in this community to sit with: the difference between demand and desire. Demand is what customers tell you they want. Desire is the emotion you create in them. “A great brand will come up with products that nobody ever asked for, that yesterday nobody had ever seen before, but today some portion of the audience can’t live without. That’s desire. That’s not demand.” You cannot survey your way to it. You read the moment, back your taste, and make the thing nobody requested. Every founder agonising over another round of customer feedback before shipping needed to hear that.

But I’ve been sitting on this one for a month and it hasn’t softened: I want Asia’s conference to be Asian.

We flew in Europe’s finest, LVMH and Kering, to a room in Singapore, and a good chunk of the agenda was a recap of what already played in New York in January. Meanwhile the most interesting retail on the planet right now is happening in China, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam. Olive Young, the Korean beauty retailer that every Western beauty exec is quietly obsessed with, got a small session that didn’t hit. That’s the brand I wanted an hour with. That’s the brand I flew for.

The best read of the whole week backed me up. Dr Frank Yang’s closing keynote on China was the sharpest thing on any stage: Chinese youth consumption shifting from planned to instant, shoppers trading up from price-performance to price-quality, and the whole market moving from buying goods to buying lifestyle, with emotional, self-pleasing consumption now driving growth. One keynote. I wanted a full day of that, from every hot market in the region.

The gap between what that conference was and what it could be is the same gap I wrote about after Vogue Codes. So close to extraordinary. Give me less of Europe explaining luxury to Asia and more of Asia explaining the future to everyone else.

03 — FOBO, the acronym that followed everyone home

FOMO is dead. The new condition is FOBO: the fear of better options.

KPMG’s Global Head of Consumer and Retail, Isabelle Allen, put it on the table on day one: “The new term is FOBO, the fear of better options. The risk is not just that you invest and get some things wrong. The greater risk is that you wait and fall behind, or get excluded from the party altogether.”

Nobody’s scared of missing AI anymore. They’re scared that whatever they commit to now gets outdone by something cheaper and better next month, so they wait. The tool paralysis is real: every week there’s a new model, a new agent, a new platform someone swears is the one, and freezing starts to feel like the responsible move.

By the end of the week the acronym had quietly upgraded itself into something darker: the fear of being obsolete. And I’m going to plant my flag here, because I think the second definition is the correct one. “Better options” makes waiting sound rational, like you’re a savvy shopper holding out for the sale. You’re not. There is no perfect moment coming, and the option you pick matters far less than the muscle you build using it. The experimenting you do right now, the messy pilots, the wrong first tool, the prompt that didn’t work, is the actual capability. It compounds. Sit out this window because you’re waiting for a better option and you don’t fall behind by one tool, you fall behind by every lesson the tool would have taught you. That’s not behind. That’s obsolete.

The best answer to FOBO on any stage came from FairPrice, Singapore’s biggest grocer. Their “store of tomorrow” runs about nine AI initiatives at once, and they only keep the ones that earn their place against real business metrics. Basket size. Gross margin. Not vibes.

→ So what: this applies whether you’re running a startup or a team inside a corporate. You don’t need the perfect tool. You need small, no-regret bets measured against one real number, and the discipline to kill the ones that don’t move it. The cost of a wrong bet is a lesson. The cost of no bet is your relevance.

04 — Your product data is your shopfront now

This is the section to forward to anyone with a Shopify store, a marketplace listing or a marketing budget.

I told you in the June cap table report that agentic checkout went live in Australia, with THE ICONIC, Adore Beauty and Bunnings feeding product data straight into Google. Singapore was three days of the why. Retail is handing the act of discovery over to AI. Increasingly, a shopper doesn’t search for your product; her AI agent does. And agents don’t browse. They don’t feel a vibe. They don’t look at pictures.

They read data.

Here’s the number that should scare you into action: a Mirakl study of retail websites across the region found an average product-data readiness score of 48 out of 100, with fewer than one in a hundred sites scoring above 80. Myer’s Warwick Blunt was refreshingly honest about it on stage: a dress carried only in evocative marketing copy may never be surfaced for the shopper who wants it, because the agent can’t read “effortless summer elegance.” It can read fabric, fit, occasion, size, stock and shipping speed.

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Roger Dunn’s session gave the week its best line: when discovery, comparison and purchase collapse into a single AI interaction, the brand becomes metadata. His numbers were just as sharp:

→ A Google search averages 3.4 words. A prompt to ChatGPT can run to sixty. Keywords are ice cubes, uniform and mass-produced; prompts are snowflakes, layered with context. The signal is ten times richer, if your data can answer it.

→ Traffic arriving from AI assistants converts at around 11.4%, miles above paid or direct, because that shopper has already done her research.

→ Shoppers trust a retailer’s own AI tools roughly three times more than the big platforms’, and Walmart sees order values rise about a third when customers shop through its agent, Sparky. The retailer’s edge is knowing what’s actually in stock, right now, at what price. The big models don’t.

→ So what: enriching your product data is the least glamorous and highest-leverage marketing job of 2026. Structured attributes, reviews, sizing, stock, shipping. If the AI can’t read you, you don’t exist at the exact moment someone’s ready to buy. For a small brand this is the rare game where you can out-execute a department store with a spreadsheet and a weekend.

05 — The marketing money, and where it’s going

Three sessions, one uncomfortable message for anyone holding a marketing budget.

→ Les Binet, the effectiveness godfather, came with receipts: how much you invest accounts for roughly 90% of the profit marketing generates, and the efficiency of each dollar only about 10%. Since the pandemic, marketers have nudged measured ROI up a few points while actual profitability fell by more. Leaner, and delivering less. His fix: weight spend roughly 60/40 towards brand over short-term activation, and protect share of voice even when the budget conversation gets ugly. And the line to pin above your desk: big brands that imitate small brands become small brands.

→ Adrian Staiti of CAA called time on celebrity badging. Slapping a famous face on a product and calling it a campaign is dead money. Asking what a celebrity costs is, in his words, like asking how long is a piece of rope. The winners start with the story, then find the partner. One Snapdragon x Manchester United announcement did more for awareness than years of paid media.

→ Crafted’s Sarah Nesheim brought the creator maths. Don’t chase virality, manufacture word-of-mouth: activate creators by the hundreds on standardised rates, watch what resonates, then whitelist the winners and run paid under the creator’s own handle so the social proof stays intact. Lo-fi UGC at $0 to $200 a video routinely beats polished brand creative. And measure incrementality, the customers who wouldn’t otherwise have bought, not ROAS.

→ So what: the founder playbook writes itself. A few micro-creators in real relationships beat one expensive celebrity post, brand-building is an investment not a luxury, and the moment your audience feels tricked by fake or AI-made content, the trust is gone for good.

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06 — The safari (hot af, worth it)

Day three we swapped the keynote stage for the streets. The Retail Safari with NORA was thirty-plus degrees, a hundred percent humidity, and we were so, so sweaty. I’d do it again tomorrow. Nothing beats seeing retail in the wild.

The stop worth your attention is New Bahru: the beautifully preserved former Nan Chiau High School reborn as a retail precinct, with more than forty independent, made-in-Singapore, mostly founder-led brands and not a single mass chain. Badminton court markings still on the floor. Every tenant chosen for fit, not for the footfall guarantee. It’s what happens when curation is the actual strategy, and it made every Australian on that bus quietly rethink what a “centre” is for.

FairPrice Finest was the other one: a supermarket with a bar in it, craft beer on tap and meals cooked from ingredients in the aisle you’re standing in. Grocery as a destination, not a chore.

And the thing I personally can’t stop thinking about: single-brand beauty stores in their full expression. Walking into one brand’s complete world is magic, and the discipline is asking what travels. The Prada Beauty spring flower market was the masterclass: the concept worked at full scale in-store and compressed down to a single gondola at the airport. That’s the test of a real retail idea. It survives shrinking.

Honest caveat for the Australian reader: plenty of this won’t copy-paste here. Singapore is six million people in 730 square kilometres; we are sprawl. The density economics that make a New Bahru or a four-visits-a-week grocery habit work are not our economics. Steal the principle, not the format. Curation, participation, hospitality woven into retail. The inspo travels even when the floor plan doesn’t.

07 — A brief intermission about a tiny mic

Sophie and I spent the breaks running around with the tiny mic, trapping executives as they came off stage for LinkedIn content, and it was unhinged behaviour that I refuse to apologise for.

Here’s the surreal bit. Twelve months of doing this across conferences and the tiny mic now gets recognised. Executives I would have died to get five minutes with were coming up to ME saying they like the content and asking to be featured. Build the thing consistently and the room starts coming to you.

And then someone gave me feedback that stung because it was true: “You’re a brilliant journalist in the making. However, you parrot what other people say. Be more opinionated.”

Girl. Noted.

This is the magic of building a personal brand, and why I’ll keep telling every one of you to start. Jobs change, companies restructure, titles get taken off you. The brand is the only thing you take with you. And apparently mine now comes with feedback, which means it’s working.

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Where this leaves us

Every stat from the week points the same direction. The consumption growth is in Asia. The AI adoption curve is steepest in Asia. The retail formats worth studying are being built in Asia. And the biggest retail conference in our region just put Australia’s entire retail leadership on a bus to go look at it, then filled half the stage time with Europe and New York.

Both things can be true. The event was excellent. The event is also one brave agenda away from being the most important retail gathering in the world.

My read: Asia was never coming. It’s been here the whole time, and the only thing that was ever west was our attention.

So: when did you last pay attention to what’s happening in APAC for inspiration instead of America? Reply, I want to know.

Brooke x

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Aussie Angels is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it.

Meet Jemma Sbeg. Host of The Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast talking millions of us through this decade with the research to back it. Now available on Netflix!!

I met Jem at Domefest, where she was the headline act back home on Aus soil from London for a moment. The girls collectively lost their mind when she bought out her mum as her special guest for the show. She’s even better in person.

What are you actually building right now? Better habits and muscle. Not particularly sexy, but I’ve been on a real longevity journey this past year after some scary health news. It’s been amazing to see how much the body can adjust and transform on new routines, slowly and then seemingly all at once. I’ve been thinking a lot about myself as a mother and grandmother and how I want to move and feel then, not just look now.

The most unhinged thing you’ve done for your career? Every week I have a ‘shoot your shot’ Wednesday where I send the emails, pitches, articles and DMs to people I’d want to collaborate with in my wildest dreams. I let myself have all the courage and none of the embarrassment for that one day a week, and it’s taught me there’s no shame in asking.

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What are you gossiping about right now? Substack. And the people making their BAG from writing and sharing their thoughts online. I have friends making $100–300k on that platform and they never have to sacrifice their voice, pitch themselves to brands or adhere to someone else’s guidelines. I admire them so much.

The thing you’re most embarrassed to admit? I’m really bad with long-term financial planning. I’m so financially cautious and anxious that I don’t always get my money working for me, even though my mum is literally an economist. Something I need to change this year, that’s for sure.

What do you want the angels to find you for? Science-backed evidence for your 20s and for life. Opinions occasionally, but the research and the empirical evidence for why you feel the way you do always comes first.

When did you realise you’d built a community, not just an audience? My first friendship meet-up. We run these occasionally to get likeminded listeners together, and every single person who came was the coolest person I’d ever met. Smart, talented, motivated, kind. It made me shed a few tears of joy.

What’s something ambitious women are spending too much time on right now? Dating. Most men can’t keep up with ambitious women, or simply don’t want to (someone had to say it). Don’t waste any more of your precious time on a man who has to be a special project. The right person will come along.

→ Where to find her? The Psychology of Your 20s wherever you listen, @thatpsychologypodcast and @jemmasbeg on Instagram, and psychologyofyour20s.com.

Who should we feature next? Reply to this email and nominate an angel we all need to know about.

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MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it, and we are in a MOOD.

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly.

🔗 Join the MOODY chat →

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It’s EOFY, tax time, the pointy end of the financial year. Quiet on top, busy underneath: rates held, confidence slipped, the headline raises looked huge, and the real action was in the small cheques. Fluff-free as always: what happened, what it means, and the so what for your money, time and energy.

a quick EOFY confession, because you need to hear it

I spent two days processing expenses and I want you to learn from my pain. I put through $22k of reimbursements I’d let pile up since February. Twenty-two thousand dollars, sitting in a company account instead of mine, earning me precisely nothing. Imagine that in a high-interest account or an ETF the whole time, quietly compounding, instead of decomposing in a folder of receipts because I couldn’t be bothered.

Three tax-time nudges. I’m not an accountant and this is a big-sister yell, not financial advice:

→ Claim expenses monthly, not yearly. Money parked in someone else’s account isn’t working for you.

→ If you run a business, the $20k instant asset write-off is permanent from 1 July, so a considered purchase is worth a chat with your accountant.

→ Book that accountant now. Their July is carnage, the good ones find deductions you never will, and they pay for themselves.

The math is the math: idle money is a decision, usually an accidental one. Right. On to June.

Aussie Angels is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat — and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it.

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01 - THE MACRO

→ The RBA held the cash rate at 4.35%, its first pause this year after three rises in a row. The cash rate is the dial the Reserve Bank turns to make borrowing cheaper or dearer. A breath, not a turn back down.

→ The twist the headlines missed: reported inflation eased to 4%, but mostly because the petrol discount pulled fuel down. The measure the RBA actually watches, underlying inflation (which strips out volatile stuff like fuel), kept climbing to 3.6%, its highest since late 2024. The number that decides your mortgage is the quiet one, and it’s still going the wrong way. Translation: another rate rise in August is still on the table.

→ Consumer confidence fell to 80.6, a fourth drop this year, with households rating their finances 7.5% worse than a year ago. People are nervous and buying less.

→ Three things change on 1 July: the $20k instant asset write-off becomes permanent for sub-$10m businesses; the fuel-excise relief halves (32c to 16c a litre, about $11 more per tank, then gone by August); and a world-first law bans Coles and Woolworths from gouging on groceries, policed by the ACCC.

→ So what: money is expensive, underlying inflation is still rising, and customers are scared. If you’re building, grow without burning cash. If you’re backing or advising, favour the ones who can. Either way, make the runway (the months of money a business has left) stretch.

Over to you: does the permanent write-off change anything for you, or is it a headline that lands as nothing on the ground? Tell me in the comments.

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02 - THE MARKETS

A quick read on the big markets, because they set the mood your customers shop in.

→ Housing The national home value index posted zero growth in May, its first stall of the cycle, with auction clearances near 50%. Perth, Darwin and Brisbane are still throwing a party; Sydney and Melbourne have gone home early, down 2.1% and 3.2% from their late-2025 peaks. The budget’s proposed cuts to property-investor tax breaks could thin the crowd further.

→ Commodities (the raw stuff we dig up and sell). In Westpac’s June read, gold slipped 2.5% on higher global rates, copper jumped 5.6%, and iron ore ticked up 1%. Oil eased as the US-Iran standoff looked to settle, which should finally take some heat out of petrol and inflation.

→ Retail The twist: even with confidence in the gutter, discretionary spending (the nice-to-haves) actually rose 2.1% in May, led by clothes, cafes and travel. But that's one sale-driven month in a cautious year, Deloitte tips discretionary growth to crawl from 2.5% last year to 0.7% this year. Shoppers are out, but only when there's a deal.

→ ETFs (baskets of shares you buy in one trade, now how most people invest). The local market is on track to pass $400B this year, with over $5B flowing in a month. The every girl is quietly becoming an investor, one automated transfer at a time, buying the whole market instead of picking winners.

→ So what: the average customer’s house has stopped climbing, her petrol relief is fading, and her savings compound in the background. Wealth feels flat and cautious. That’s the mood the whole market is selling into, so value and trust beat hype.

03 - THE CHEQUE-IN

June’s money came shaped like a barbell: heavy at both ends, thin in the middle. A few enormous late rounds, a pile of tiny first cheques, little in between.

→ At the top: Airwallex raised US$320M at a US$11B valuation, up 37%, and Everlab took a $65M Series A for preventive health, with Pat Cummins on the cap table (the list of everyone who owns a slice). The cricket captain. No notes.

→ The spread underneath was wide: QuantX Labs ($7M, defence quantum clocks), DataMasque ($5.6M, realistic fake data so AI can train without exposing real customers), New Energy Transport ($5M, electric trucks), Flyweel ($2.41M, the money layer under ad spend), SavvyWise ($1.56M, AI for Australian tax), and Oscorp ($1.3M, AI robots pulling fire-risk batteries out of recycling).

→ Little guys, big backers: two Queensland teams off to Y Combinator at $700k each, Alloovium (construction AI) and Gutgutgoose (personalised probiotics), plus grassroots-sports teamwear platform Nardo ($1M, with Socceroo Tim Cahill on board).

→ One to watch: Nitrosend’s $700k seed, the Adelaide AI email platform from the Hartley brothers, who sent six billion emails at their last company before selling it. Second-time founders, back in the ring.

📊 Venture capital raised by Australian startups, 2019 to 2026 On track for ~$4.3B if the year holds this pace ($1.8B banked, ~$2.5B more expected). Up on 2025’s $2.9B, still well below the 2021 $6B peak. Source: Dealroom.co, updated 18 Jun 2026.

→ So what: the big funds are piling back into the safe, late rounds, which leaves the early-stage gap wide open. Early is where a community like ours makes the most difference, whether you’re building one of these, backing one, or cheering one on.

04 - THE GIRLS WHO ARE BUILDING

All-women founding teams still get about 2% of the country’s venture capital.

Two. Percent.

→ Dr Ariella Heffernan-Marks, Ovum. $4M seed after tripling her valuation, led by Admiralty Capital with Antler, Giant Leap, Brisbane Angels and the Alice Anderson Fund. She started it after doctors dismissed her own chronic migraines, and has built the first dataset that tracks women’s health over time: 60,000+ health insights, 113,000+ AI conversations, and partners already signed in Medibank, Fernwood, Sweat and Menopause Friendly Australia. Lived experience, real data, real distribution.

→ The fix to track: Minderoo put up to $8M into Startmate to back women, where 43% of companies have a female co-founder versus 24% across the industry. That’s what moving the number looks like.

→ So what: she gets backed at the start or not at all. If that 2% ever moves, it’s because someone wrote the cheque early, not five rounds later once she’s “proven” and twice the price.

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05 - THE MARKETING NOTES

Reaching customers split into two lanes this month: the free kind and the paid kind.

→ Earned (attention you don’t pay for): the creator economy took centre stage at Cannes Lions in June, 250+ creators on the ground with their own official track. The quiet admission from brands: they lean on creators because they can’t make enough good content themselves, and creators can. At home it’s heading past $1B this year. The shift that matters: from one-off gifting to ongoing partnerships, and from big names to micro-creators (10k to 100k followers) who convert because their audience trusts them.

→ Paid: retail media is advertising you buy inside a retailer’s stores, app or site. News Australia’s Suddenly launched one and signed BWS, 300+ in-store screens. Woolworths and Coles had this to themselves; now News Corp wants in, which means more ad space and higher costs to be seen.

→ So what: if you’re a founder with little cash, a few micro-creators in a real relationship beat one pricey celebrity post, and beat renting shelf space before you have loyal customers. Earn attention first. Pay for it once the maths works.

06 - THE AI CORNER

Two things to actually know from June.

→ Where the money goes: applied AI beats general AI. Every June raise solved one specific, painful job, Everlab on preventive health, Ovum on women’s health data, DataMasque on safe training data, Oscorp on battery fires. Nobody got funded for vague “AI for everything.” Whether you’re building, backing or betting your career on a sector, that’s the test: one real problem, solved better than a human can.

→ Where the customer goes: agentic checkout went live here, a first for our region. Agentic just means an AI that can act for you, like finding a product and buying it. Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol launched in Australia on 17 June with THE ICONIC, Adore Beauty, Bunnings, Kogan and Petbarn, feeding product and price data straight into Google so people buy inside Search, Gemini, YouTube and Gmail without visiting the shop. The clever part: THE ICONIC stays the “retailer of record,” keeping the customer and the loyalty. It gave up the storefront, not the relationship.

→ So what: discovery is shifting from “rank on Google” to “be readable by the AI.” If a product’s data isn’t formatted for an AI to understand and recommend, it gets skipped at the moment someone’s ready to buy. If that’s your product, or one you back or advise, get the data AI-ready now, while it’s still an edge.

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07 - THE MONTH IN ONE LINE

Expensive money, a flat housing market, a barbell of raises, a femtech that finally got paid, a 2% problem, and an AI doing the checkout. None of it gets fixed by the funds alone. It gets fixed in rooms like this, where the people who build, back, buy and consume actually talk.

See you in the chat 🤍 Brooke x

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Socials: @aussie__angels and @brookekmoody.

I had six tabs open this week that I could not close, and somewhere around the fourth one it clicked. They’re all the same story wearing different outfits. Everyone is spending more and getting less, and we’ve all agreed to call it a good time.

A celebrity gadget that’s all casting, no product. A festival selling human connection while drowning in AI. A 188-year-old department store finally handing a woman the keys to fix what it broke. Two cool-girl brands rattling the tin for cash. A European resale giant that slipped into the country overnight. And a tax-time sale that looks like a party and feels like a budget meeting.

Six stories. None of them connect. Lined up, they tell you exactly where the consumer is right now. Let’s go.

1. Kylie put on the Meta glasses and I nearly bought a pair

Here’s the upsetting part. It worked on me.

I have never wanted smart glasses. Never added them to a cart, never thought they were cool, never once felt them enter the group chat. Then Meta dropped its new line this week, quietly scrubbed the Ray-Ban name off the whole thing, and put Kylie Jenner’s name on the hero pair. The Meta Glasses by Kylie land at AU$629, a clean $160 more than the other two models at AU$469. What’s the extra money for? Almost nothing you can use. A little gem on the lens, a nod to paparazzi flashes. Metal nose pads so your foundation survives. A sparkling chime when you put them on. Kylie’s actual voice as your AI, “rise and shine” included.

And there I was at 11pm, basket open. An hour no good decision has ever been made.

Because the casting is the whole product. The tech is the same kit that’s been sitting there unloved for two years. What changed is who’s wearing them. Kylie’s been on a run: the soft, “real” turn on Jake Shane’s Therapuss (Session 120, the most-streamed episode in the show’s history), the courtside silly-goose era with Chalamet, the slow reveal of an actual personality. The campaign landed on top of all that goodwill and it just worked. No other Kardashian name-slap is moving culture like this right now. Get the casting right and the product barely has to turn up.

Then I get off the bus. Because it’s surveillance tech with a gem on it. The loudest take online this week was that a camera that doesn’t look like a camera should probably be illegal, and they’re not wrong. We say we’re desperate for connection. For IRL. For putting the phone face-down at dinner like grown-ups. And the most desirable object of the week is one more pane of glass between you and the person across the table, quietly clocking everything.

It sold me a more elegant way to ghost the people I’m sitting with.

So what does it say about us that the hottest product of the week is a better-looking way to leave the room without standing up?

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2. Why is everyone suddenly at Cannes

Cannes Lions used to be an industry thing. Agencies, ad men, rosé, rooms I had no real interest in. This year I could not stop thinking about it, and judging by my feed, neither could you.

More than 500 creators worked the Croisette, up from about 400 a year ago. Not the kids’ table “media channels” anymore. Strategic partners, with brands rebuilding the room to seat them.

But the glow-up has a crack right through it. Award entries fell roughly 25%, to 20,050 from 26,900. Leadership is calling it a “reset.” Generous. Last year, winning campaigns had their Lions stripped after agencies got caught using AI to fake the results. So the festival that just tightened its rules to punish AI deception threw its biggest-ever celebration of AI creative tools in the same week. Iconic, no notes.

Here’s the line that stuck. One agent remembered when spotting ad legend Martin Sorrell on the street was the celebrity moment at Cannes. That was the old power map: agencies, networks, holding-company chiefs. This year the room belongs to the people who walk in with the audience already attached, a community, a production style, proof people choose to watch them with no media plan forcing it. The power didn’t shift. It flipped.

Before you throw the parade, though, read what the creators actually said. One told the Washington Post his first Cannes felt like an “I made it” moment, then went honest: “I didn’t feel welcome, to be honest.” Cut in line, talked over, treated like a second-class attendee. So here’s the bit nobody says on a panel: the CMOs want the meeting, and the old guard still resents the dollars walking out the door with people who never paid their dues at an agency. Both things. Same beach.

And the detail I keep turning over. In a week absolutely marinating in AI, the rooms that were actually alive were full of creators talking about human connection, real storytelling, getting offline. The main stage sells automation. The crowds show up for the opposite. The smart brands clocked why: a creator partnership that reads as a cash grab or an audience rental now just fails. Authenticity stopped being the nice-to-have. It became the product.

Want proof of where the money’s going? It wasn’t a keynote. It was a handbag. Balenciaga used Cannes to become the first luxury house to join Substack’s new sponsorship program, sitting in the launch cohort next to Uber, T-Mobile and Polymarket, sealed with a literary panel at its Cannes flagship. Read that again. A century-old fashion house decided the place to plant its flag in 2026 is independent writers’ inboxes. Not a feed. Not a billboard. Not a sixty-second pre-roll. Influence moved from the algorithm to the email.

This is the bit I actually care about, so I’ll say it straight. The program lets creators with as few as 100 paid subscribers tap those same advertisers directly. One hundred. Brand money that used to need an agency, a manager and a media kit is now reachable by a girl writing to a few hundred people who actually read her. That’s the whole game changing. The gatekeepers didn’t open the gate. Someone built a new door.

So is this the creator economy’s victory lap, or the most expensive room in the world to stand in, get cut in line, and insist that human connection still matters?

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3. David Jones got a woman at the helm. Only took 188 years.

Erica Berchtold is the first female CEO in David Jones’ 188-year history. A department store whose whole reason for existing is the woman with the credit card, and it took until 2026 to let one drive. That’s a headline on its own. But the better story is her CV.

Berchtold ran THE ICONIC and was MD of Rebel Sport. A digital and e-commerce operator to the bone, handed the most analog format in retail at its most fragile moment. David Jones posted a $95.5 million pre-tax loss last year, sales down 8.7% to $2 billion, and her predecessor was shown the door under cover of a “planned transition.” Now she’s running the five-year INSPIRE30 turnaround: efficiency, margin, digital. A pure-play native, inheriting the cathedral.

Here’s where I get personal, because I live in the gap she’s been hired to close. The flagships are genuinely lovely now. Sydney, Melbourne, the level-seven shoe floor. Proof the in-store bet can work. But that is not the everyday David Jones. The everyday one is me walking into Queens Plaza and finding broken change rooms, nobody on the floor to grab me a size, nowhere to actually pay. The basics. Fumbled, by one of the biggest names in the country. You can refurbish a flagship until it glows. But if the local store can’t find me a size 8, the transformation is just a press release.

And she’s inheriting all this as the sector turns into a beauty arms race. Myer is going all-in, doubling its beauty offer, turning the halls into “worlds,” stacking up La Mer, Guerlain, Helena Rubinstein, chasing K-beauty and TikTok ranges to pull the younger shopper it admits it doesn’t have. Looks airtight. Then you check the maths. Only about 13% of beauty sales here happen online; 87% are still in a store, which is exactly why everyone’s racing into bricks and mortar. Yet Sephora, after all these years, sits at roughly 4% of online share. Mecca leads. Adore holds about 10%, and Adore is mid-rollout to 25 stores on about 2% margins, with a share price that’s slid from a $6.91 listing to around 36c. Big land grab. Brutal economics.

My first job was at Myer. The basement, youth fashion. I thought it was the coolest place a person could work. We didn’t have to wear Myer black, we wore our own jeans, and we’d burn mix CDs at home to play over the store stereo. The whole floor had a feeling. Mid-2000s, sure, and I was a teenager who thought a lot of things were cool. But it had something you cannot print on a planogram.

Berchtold can fix the tech. Myer can buy every luxury skincare house on the planet. But the real question for both is the one nobody wants to say out loud on an investor call. Can you merchandise your way back to cool? Or is cool the one thing a department store can never put on the shelf?

4. The DTC darlings go looking for money

Two of the most-watched direct-to-consumer brands went looking for money this week. Side by side, they’re a referendum on whether “born online and impossibly cool” still counts for anything once Wall Street walks in with a spreadsheet.

Reformation filed for an IPO, heading to the NYSE as REF. The numbers are hot: $507.1 million in revenue last year, up 15.7%, 20 straight quarters of double-digit growth, about 90% of it direct. That’s a real business. Not a vibe. But the profit line whispers the other half, net income more than halved, to $12.6 million from $32.6 million. It’s private-equity owned, and the filing opens with the brand’s signature wink (”Being naked is the #1 most sustainable option. We’re #2.”) before getting deadly serious about margins. The test: does the market still have an appetite for premium fashion that built its cool first and is only now sending the bill?

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Glossier, meanwhile, the original DTC sweetheart, raised fresh capital to fund “the next chapter of Glossier’s growth” and said almost nothing about what that chapter is. Which is the tell. Glossier was built on scarcity, community and one very specific shade of pink. Needing a top-up, and being coy about why, is a long way from the brand that had people queuing round the block for a cleanser in a pretty pouch.

Put them next to section three and the irony pours itself. Reformation and Glossier conjured cult cool out of nothing and now have to turn it into the kind of growth investors can model. David Jones and Myer have the scale, the floor space, the foot traffic, and are trying to buy that cool back.

Here’s my flag in the ground. Turning cool into profit is the easier trick. Reformation just proved it. 20 quarters. Cool comes with attention, and attention is the hardest thing in retail to manufacture. You can always staff a model better, tighten a supply chain, raise a price. What you cannot do is reverse-engineer the feeling that made someone queue. So I’d take the brand with the cool and the cash-flow problem over the institution with the balance sheet and the empty change room. Every time.

So which is the harder trick in 2026, turning cool into profit, or turning profit into cool?

5. Vinted quietly landed in Australia

No press release. No launch party. Just a live website and an App Store listing that turned up this week, ahead of the official July 1 start. Vinted, Europe’s recommerce giant, valued at €8 billion, is now trading here. Pointed straight at eBay and Depop.

The model is the hook. Sellers list for free, print a prepaid label, keep 100% of what they earn. The fee sits with the buyer. That’s the same structure that’s already forced eBay to drop private-seller fees market by market. But the smart bit is the exclusive three-year deal with Australia Post, parcel lockers, post offices, the lot. It fixes the one thing peer-to-peer resale always breaks on. Shipping that doesn’t make you want to give up.

And the timing is everything. 46% of Australians already buy second-hand every year, and the local recommerce market is tipped to hit US$6.75 billion by 2029. Read that against everything above. A department store fighting to stay relevant. A beauty arms race. A consumer trading down. Recommerce just stopped being a side hustle and became a channel with national infrastructure behind it.

So when the cheapest, coolest wardrobe in the country is everybody else’s wardrobe, what is full-price retail even competing against?

6. Tax-time sales: everyone’s spending, nobody’s enjoying it

Here’s the tell of 2026. The sale still works. The shopper just doesn’t trust it anymore. She buys, then feels weird about it.

EOFY is one of our biggest retail moments of the year, and it’s set to grow a limp 1.9%, below inflation. About 6.1 million Australians will shop, but the share planning to spend less jumped six points, and around three million who shopped last year are sitting this one out. The clearest signal is generational: the 35-to-49s plan to spend $1,464, less than both the under-35s ($1,946) and the over-50s ($1,993). The middle is the most scared, because the middle is the most exposed. That’s your K-shaped consumer in one line. The backdrop confirms it: Deloitte has discretionary spending growth collapsing from 2.5% to 0.7%.

Same anxiety in the US, different accent. Amazon stretched Prime Day to four days and it’s headed for a record, $26 billion, bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Yet the average order fell 17%, to $48.36. Bigger event. Smaller baskets. Fortune called it the institutionalisation of the panic-buy. The deals are thinner, people buy anyway, and more of it goes on Buy Now, Pay Later (about 44% of Gen Z).

Everywhere you look, the same split. Record headlines, shrinking receipts. We’ve trained a whole generation to never pay full price, and to only move when they’re scared prices will rise. Which works, right up until the discount stops feeling special.

Look no further than David Jones this week. Up to 50% off, plus an extra 20% off designer, with an extra 50% stacked on some categories. Not one discount. A discount on a discount. When half price has stopped moving stock on its own, the baseline has already broken.

So what happens to retail in this country the day the sale stops working?

If there’s a through-line, it’s this: cool is the only thing left that can’t be discounted, faked, or bought back. Everything else is on sale.

Which one are you still chewing on? Reply, I want to know.

Brooke x

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I’ve spent so much of May and June on planes (Sydney, Thailand, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney again and again) that I’ve started treating my low-phone days at home like medicine. Genuinely saving my sanity.

Mid-year is my favourite time to go into self-investment mode. It’s never wasted. Usually this means committing to my running routine ahead of Bridge 2 Brissy. But this year I’ve just started professional speaker coaching with the brilliant Sally Prosser and I am SO pumped, after a decade of corporate Australia flattening my voice this feels like taking it back. Put me on a stage and I’m in my element. This is even more impactful if I have something to say that’s not in the corporate messaging guide, I need to get comfy with this.

Clearly the whole room is in build-yourself mode: half of you are quietly deep in Jessi Jean’s Yap Challenge (the one that did a $1.2M launch, yes really). Report back, I want to know how you’re going.

If the thought of yapping on a tiny mic makes you cringe, don’t stress. Getting visible is a pick ‘n’ mix: stages, podcasts, Substack, posting regularly in the group chat, introducing yourself to someone new at drinks. There’s a way to show up for everyone. You just choose the one that feels like you, and go. The key is consistency and a POV that’s uniquely yours.

I’ve also been thinking so much about energy management, mine and ours. I want to build something that lasts, which means I need to scale this properly. Two things I’m calling in: I need city leads to help run events in each capital (more on this to come), and I want to build out our education pillar (you saw the Deep Dives poll, it’s happening). This community deserves both. Aussie women deserve better, and we’re going to build it.

And because I love a hot rec, a few things I’m sick for this month:

→ My new work bag: the Marlow Tote from Reh Studios. I bought it because Jordyn had one (as you do) and the quality for the price point is insane. Aussie brand, all-women team. Sold.

→ The Crown Affair towel. Since getting my K-tip extensions (thank you Stone the Studio) I’ve been obsessed with making the styling actually worth it, and I hate to admit it but Diana Cohen knows exactly what she’s talking about. Worth the $90.

→ Willpowders cherry electrolyte sachets. Got gifted these at Domefest and now I travel with them everywhere. Obsessed.

→ Baked mango from Nibblish. All those months in Asia gave me a thing for nibbly little treats, and these have no nasties. Dangerous in the best way. Thank you Sunday Agency for getting me hooked.

Forward this to one girl in your network who’d get it. Add her to the chat. We’re taking over.

Love Brooke x

Aussie Angels is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it.

02 — FROM HQ

A few bits of good news from our side of the room.

→ We tipped over 333 on Instagram. 333. If a number was ever going to feel ANGEL aligned, it’s that one. 🤍

→ Spotify ANZ picked us up. The Process The Pod x Brooke community episode landed in Spotify ANZ’s Podcast Picks of the Week. The one where Arielle and I do nothing but gush about this group for an hour. Iconic that the algorithm and the Spotify ANZ team agrees with us. Listen →

→ I finally said my piece on Vogue Codes. I loved it, and I had notes. I’ve been trying to put my opinions out there more after a decade of corporate Australia flattening them, so this one meant a lot. I loved Vogue Codes, I also have notes →

→ The May Cap Table Report is up. Macro, raises and AI all moved last month. This is the fluff-free version: what actually happened, and the so-what for where you put your money, time and energy. Your brief going into June. Read it →

→ The Aussie Angels Directory is live. You asked for it, so here it is. Spend 60 seconds adding yourself and you’ll be able to search every other angel by what they do, what they’re looking for and what they’re open to being contacted about. Founder, corporate, investor, creative, all of it. The whole community, searchable. No more “wait, who does what again?” Add yourself →

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03 — ANGEL OF THE MONTH

Meet Jemma Sbeg. Host of The Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast talking millions of us through this decade with the research to back it. Now available on Netflix!!

What are you actually building right now? Better habits and muscle. Not particularly sexy, but I’ve been on a real longevity journey this past year after some scary health news. It’s been amazing to see how much the body can adjust and transform on new routines, slowly and then seemingly all at once. I’ve been thinking a lot about myself as a mother and grandmother and how I want to move and feel then, not just look now.

The most unhinged thing you’ve done for your career? Every week I have a ‘shoot your shot’ Wednesday where I send the emails, pitches, articles and DMs to people I’d want to collaborate with in my wildest dreams. I let myself have all the courage and none of the embarrassment for that one day a week, and it’s taught me there’s no shame in asking.

What are you gossiping about right now? Substack. And the people making their BAG from writing and sharing their thoughts online. I have friends making $100–300k on that platform and they never have to sacrifice their voice, pitch themselves to brands or adhere to someone else’s guidelines. I admire them so much.

The thing you’re most embarrassed to admit? I’m really bad with long-term financial planning. I’m so financially cautious and anxious that I don’t always get my money working for me, even though my mum is literally an economist. Something I need to change this year, that’s for sure.

What do you want the angels to find you for? Science-backed evidence for your 20s and for life. Opinions occasionally, but the research and the empirical evidence for why you feel the way you do always comes first.

When did you realise you’d built a community, not just an audience? My first friendship meet-up. We run these occasionally to get likeminded listeners together, and every single person who came was the coolest person I’d ever met. Smart, talented, motivated, kind. It made me shed a few tears of joy.

What’s something ambitious women are spending too much time on right now? Dating. Most men can’t keep up with ambitious women, or simply don’t want to (someone had to say it). Don’t waste any more of your precious time on a man who has to be a special project. The right person will come along.

→ Where to find her? The Psychology of Your 20s wherever you listen, @thatpsychologypodcast and @jemmasbeg on Instagram, and psychologyofyour20s.com.

Want the angel of the month slot? Reply to this email and it’s yours.

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04 — WHAT THE CHAT IS DOING WITH AI

I got on a nine-hour flight, realised it had wifi, and asked the chat for the most unhinged and helpful things they’ve got AI doing for them. The thread did not disappoint.

→ Your own board of advisors. Teodora runs a panel of AI “advisors”, each with a role: a contrarian to challenge the idea, an outside observer asking the dumb-smart questions, a task-doer, an out-of-the-box thinker and a top 1% strategist. Each reviews anonymously, then a “chairman” makes the final call. (Prompt via Mariah Brunner.)

→ A personal assistant named Brick. Ari’s husband built her an AI PA (Brick, as in one brick at a time) that sends her the weather, moon phase, horoscope and calendar each morning, reminds her to drink water, and checks in on her mood and stress.

→ Kirby is basically planning a wedding with it. Designs, mockups, fitness and eating plans, the lot.

→ Rachel Lai has it running as a real assistant on recurring tasks: synthesising her human design, gene keys and astrology into a business plan, running a cost-benefit on DIYing a serum, and turning a week of Slack messages and brand docs into a Notion dashboard.

→ The one I can’t stop thinking about: an angel syncing her Oura data so AI books her pre-period acupuncture automatically. That is the level of automation I want in my life.

→ And Alexie (who runs an AI marketing agency in Paris) teaches founders to actually use Claude day to day, and built her own business-tracking platform in a single day. DM her if you want to learn.

The automation is the next level most of us haven’t unlocked yet. Tell me what you’ve built.

05 — WHAT THE AUSSIE ANGELS ARE MAKING

The girls are SHIPPING and I’m obsessed.

→ Georgie Healy — In The Blink of AI. Her podcast just cracked #46 in business podcasts and passed 10,000 plays on Spotify. Everything you didn’t know you needed to know about AI. If you’re not listening to Georgie yet, fix that. Listen →

→ Annabelle Russell — Substack ANZ. Our angel and Head of Partnerships for Australia & NZ at Substack just launched the next phase of Substack’s native sponsorships program. The inaugural cohort of flagship partners (Yahoo, Whatnot, Granola, Balenciaga, T-Mobile, Polymarket, Uber) is collectively putting millions into Substack creators, who keep full creative control and editorial independence. Real money without selling your voice. This is huge for anyone building here. Annabelle’s Substack → · LinkedIn →

→ BlakCast Network is Australia’s first First Nations-owned and led podcast network, founded by the brilliant Mundanara Bayles (we interviewed her at Domefest, she’s incredible). It’s home to shows like Black Magic Woman and Yarning Up. They’ve launched a Patreon to keep grassroots Indigenous storytelling alive, so rise above the noise and throw your support behind it. BlakCast → · Patreon →

→ Soph Hood — So Topical. The Seoul Tonic founder has launched a new beauty brand, and the move I can’t stop thinking about is the second account. Alongside @sotopical she’s running @sotopicalsociety purely for the behind-the-scenes of building it. Editorial, science-led, a real founder lab in public. “When everyone’s algorithm is the same, where do you find inspiration?” A founder move worth watching. sotopical.com →

→ Sam — Wayfarer Mobility. A medtech startup redesigning mobility aids to actually be beautiful (finally). Sam’s building both the product and the community around it (see her Disability Dinner Club in the diary). This is the good stuff. Sam’s also after brands to contribute products, samples or discount codes for the Disability Dinner Club gift bags. If that’s you, reach out. @wayfarer_mobility →

→ Layla — Dr. Diamond. The elevated jewellery-care brand just launched in Thailand this month, and Layla is packing up her life to take it global. This is the energy. @drdiamonnd →

→ Rosie — Collagenie Wellness Lounge. Rosie wanted to share this one because it’s the community in action: two different Aussie Angels jumped in to help on the day. hree of the Aussie angels came together to run an Event for Collagenie pets on the weekend. At Harry’s in Bondi, over 400 humans and over 150 pets dropped in for matcha, pup cups and editorial protrait photos. A meet and greet with Real Housewives celeb / Vet Dr Kate.

The world’s first certified organic collagen peptides for pets. Because pets deserve to be able to move, and run and play as they get older - just like humans. You can follow Collagenie here. EOFY sale starts on Friday with 30% off @collagenie_pets →

→ Paris — The 194 Collective. An e-commerce shoe brand for wide feet, fit struggles and the genetic stuff nobody designs for: comfortable shoes that actually look good. Waitlist is open (and she built the landing page herself in an afternoon, which is its own flex). Join the waitlist →

→ Rach Tucker — Smooch. Functional beverage to put you in the mood. Presale opens July 1. 💗 smoochdrinks.com →

→ Levina — Karsiyah Beauty. Her Face Polish is live and ready to add to cart now (pre-orders opened 22 June). Treat yourself. @karsiyah.beauty →

→ Sophie — Myrrar goes live. Her beauty AI app hits beta on Monday 29 June and I could not be prouder. Want in on the beta? She’s adding people directly, so DM her to get on the list. @_myrrar →

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And the wins that aren’t launches:

→ The dinner the chat built. What started as a single message turned into 15 of us around a table at Matteo in Double Bay last Friday, pulled together with Genevieve. And the magic was the mix: founders, operators, corporate girls and some epic VC talent all in one room. That’s the whole point. We met Joanna Lawson (Co-Ventures, working alongside VC icon Maxine Minter), just back in Sydney from San Francisco, who’s going to help school us on raising and angel investing. We are lucky to have her. One message to a full table in a week.

→ Maddi Kinchington of Mode Office and OG Aussie Angel got married in Scotland. It looks insane. That’s it. That’s the post. Congratulations angel 🤍

→ Perry Howell packed up and moved to London to scale Pilates Gang. Backing herself, going global. This is the energy. @pilatesgang_ →

→ Jen Garner made Mumbrella for her new role: from SVP of sales operations at Epsilon to GM of Operations at Two Dot AI, a Brisbane AI-agent startup. Leaving a big stable corporate seat to back herself at an early-stage company. Her words: “It feels like I’m coming home.” The leap is the whole point.

Shipped something, hit a milestone? Drop it in the chat. I want to celebrate you.

06 — IN THE DIARY

Where we’re showing up.

First, the one I’m hosting. Girl Dinner: In The Making — Melbourne on 8th July and Sydney on 15 July (The Solo Co x Aussie Angels). I’m doing this with Lizzie Mulherin and I could not be more in. An intimate dinner for early to mid-stage founders riding the highs, the lows and the general chaos of building right now.

Our guest for Melbourne is Anna Mackenzie: startup advisor, ex-Mecca, creator of Anna Mack’s Stack, one of the sharpest thinkers going on portfolio careers and the future of work. Our guest for Sydney is Rebecca Jarvie-Gibbs, Co-founder and COO of We are example an earned led culture agency blowing up the world’s hottest brands (The Australian Open - hello!!) and literally shaping the culture.

You don’t need a certain number of years in business or a financial milestone to earn a seat. You do need to come hungry for the kind of evening that nourishes you the way only dinner with your favourite girls can.

Wednesday 8 July, 6:30–10:00pm, Gracie’s Wine Room, South Yarra.
Wednesday 15th July 6:30-10:00pm, Biblo Wine Bar, Double Bay.

$150 a head, strictly 20 seats. First in, best dressed. This will go fast. RSVP Melbourne → RSVP Sydney

Now the rest of the month:

25 June · Sydney — APEX Founders: Founder Coffee Catch Up. 7:40–8:40am, A.P Bread & Wine, Darlinghurst. APEX is the new founders community from Mahdieh (Madi) . First of four on their calendar. RSVP → · @theapexfounders →

26 June · Sydney — Process Clubhouse: June Meet Up. Round two of the casual Process The Podcast get-togethers with Arielle Thomas. Faces to names, no agenda, just the community in a room. 6:00–8:00pm, Surry Hills (entrance 1 Lacey St). RSVP →

30 June · Brisbane — Aussie Angels Brisbane Meetup. Our own one, Brisbane girls this is for you. After-work drinks at Bar Monte, Newstead, 5:30–8:00pm, with a room full of ambitious women building businesses, careers, side hustles and lives they’re genuinely excited about. Most come solo their first time, and you’ll leave with at least one new friend, contact or group chat. Huge thanks to Jen Garner for pulling this one together 💛 RSVP →

30 June · Melbourne — Disability Dinner Club by Sam Freidin (Wayfarer Mobility). A monthly curated dinner for people living with physical disability or chronic illness who want a great night out with people who get it and zero support-group vibes. Venue TBC. RSVP →

1 July · Melbourne — FoundHer Dinner: Ladies of the Round Table by Veronika (Vee). A curated dinner for 20 women who mean business, every seat placed on purpose. Not networking, just two hours of real conversation over a proper meal with the right people in the right seats. 6:00–9:00pm at Pincho Disco, 59 Cambridge St, Collingwood. $85pp, multi-course (drinks not included). Approval required and already over capacity, so get on the waitlist for this and future dinners (Sydney coming August). Email hello@foundher.world or @foundher_world →

9 July · Sydney — APEX Happy Hour. 5:00–7:00pm, location TBC. APEX events are moving to the Gooday app, so join the waitlist for this one. Waitlist → there’s also a Founder dinner on the 16 July. 6:00–8:00pm, SAX Restaurant & Lounge Bar, Barangaroo. Waitlist →

17 July · Sydney — UNSW Founders Female Founders Showcase. Hosted by angel Wonyoung. A night inspired by women who’ve done it, in a room with people who get it. (Founder pitch/demo EOIs have closed, but go along.) RSVP →

21 July & 30 July · Sydney & Melbourne— Disability Dinner Club by Sam Freidin. Venue TBC. RSVP → The Commons Collective Winter Garden. RSVP →

Date Night by Hayley Westoby (our Issue 03 angel). Her curated female-founder dinner series, running on rotation: Gold Coast in July, Sydney 28 Aug, Melbourne Sept/Oct, Sydney 30 Oct, Sydney 11 Dec. Real connection, no surface networking, Hayley curates the room. The only way to get an invite is her EOI form. @datenight.aus →

On the radar (lock in early):

→ 9 Sept · Online — Women in Digital masterclass, “Elevating Your Digital Career & Personal Brand” with Ashton Tuckerman (GM, TwentyTwo Digital). 12–1pm AEST, $0–$35. Tickets →

→ 5 Nov · Sydney — Techella Fest, billed as Australia’s first tech festival built by women. 300+ women and gender-diverse builders, founders and AI creators in one room, from Brooke Wright. Save the date. techellafest.com →

Coming up: the Deep Dives. A series over the next few months. Less networking, more practical skills, insider knowledge and access to people you’d normally never get an hour with. I put it to a poll, and here’s what you want most:

→ AI technical skills: Claude Code, Codex and agentic workflows (with AWS)
→ Content creation: podcasting, video, newsletters and personal brand growth
→ Sales and pitching: how to influence, negotiate and close, for founders and corporate
→ Personal branding and LinkedIn growth
→ AI co-working: bring your laptop and your biggest bottleneck in biz or life
→ Angel Investing 101: how to get started, sourcing deals, what to look for
→ Raising Capital AMA: hear from VCs and founders who’ve raised in Australia and the US

DM me if you want to be involved in running one, or have a topic we missed.

Next round of Aussie Angels IRL dates dropping soon. Syd, Melb, Bris, Adl, GC. Watch this space.

Running something? We want to know. DM me.

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07 — THE CLASSIFIEDS

The angels need things. The angels have things.

The girls are hiring:

→ No Sunday Blues (Mikhaila Warburton) — recruiting a newly created role at a culture-led, social-first media agency in Sydney. It’s a head-hunt, referral-led, and Mikhaila reckons this community is the place to start. Advert →

→ Missing Perspectives — the media company platforming women’s stories is hiring a junior, freelance/casual, to support editing podcast episodes and clipping for social. missingperspectives.com →

→ Dr. Diamond (Layla) — the elevated jewellery-care brand is growing fast and hiring a part-time Marketing & Content person. Creative, proactive, social-obsessed: think TikTok, Instagram, influencer gifting, content shoots and creative brainstorming. @drdiamonnd →

→ RUME is looking for a co-founder. Kaitie Mulherin launched RUME at the Social Summit last month (you might have caught her flyers around). It’s a live platform connecting creators and brands to make and source social content in real time: create for brands you actually care about, build your portfolio, sharpen your craft. She’s after a growth lead to come on as co-founder and scale it, for equity. If you’re well connected in the influencer and social space and want to build from scratch on a platform that’s already LIVE, this is your seat. Interested? Hit up Kaitie@duopr.com.au rumesocial.com → · @kaitiemulherin →

The AI labs just landed in Sydney. If you’ve been waiting for a sign to shoot your shot at frontier AI, this is it:

→ Anthropic opened a Sydney office, its fourth in Asia-Pacific, and is hiring on the ground. Roles floating around include External Affairs Australia, an ASEAN Account Executive based in Sydney, ANZ Communications and a Data Center Energy Lead. Careers →

→ OpenAI is hiring in Sydney too, mostly technical and go-to-market: Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineer, Model Deployment for Business. Hybrid, with relocation on some roles. Careers →

Asks:

→ Franziska — new to Sydney, eyes open for the right match in tech or startups, would love to hear from anyone who started from scratch here or knows the scene. DM her.

→ Veronika “Vee” Forsyth wants a photographer or content creator to shoot an event in Melbourne in July. In return: exposure to the community, tags across every post including brand partners, referrals to her agency clients, and paid gigs the moment she locks sponsorship. @foundher_world →

→ Pardis is after a great activation or pop-up agency (or person) based in Melbourne. Worked with someone good? Send them her way. @pardismahdavi →

→ Nancy Cao (Muse Circle) is building a social platform connecting small businesses with local freelance talent, and wants a partner to help host IRL events across Sydney, Melbourne and beyond. Could be a lead-gen play if you love hosting. musefunnel →

→ Rach Tucker (Smooch) is hunting a buyer contact at Priceline. Smooch has been invited to pitch a big pharma group for ranging, but Priceline is the dream for brand fit. Got a contact, even a sneaky one? Email rach@smoochdrinks.com. smoochdrinks.com →

→ Sonia is after a product photographer or creative-direction assist in Sydney. @soniakhay →

→ Shreya — Australian Coffee Culture. Premium, plant-based, ready-to-drink cold brews from 100% Australian-grown coffee, fully traceable to the farm. Soft-launched three months ago and already in premium hotels, organic grocers, luxury wellness and corporate. She’s after a social content agency (small budget, be kind), and in return offers a second pair of eyes on anyone’s growth model, account management or sales strategy, plus intros. DM her. australiancoffeeculture.com →

Offers:

→ Content creators for hire. Georgia McFarlane shoots weddings (@thewed.files) and events via her agency (@thecontent.files), captured my wedding, and is doing an Aussie Angels discount. Jess covers weddings up the Byron and southern GC way. Paris (studioblueproductions.com.au ) is running mini content shoots.

→ Need a startup-friendly accountant? The chat rates Coast Accounting and The Integrated CFO (a fractional CFO with a full accounting team, great if you’re scaling and want to be set up properly from the start). coastaccounting.com.au → · theintegratedcfo.com.au →

Capital and the US play:

→ We’re building a US connections channel. So many of you are eyeing the States for funding, expansion or a corporate move, so we’re spinning up a dedicated space, sorted by exactly what you need: investors and angels, events, vendors, industry intros, across health, beauty, tech and consumer. Want in, or sitting on US contacts to share? DM me.

→ A founder house is in the works. Holly is building Build Stateside, a NYC-based founder house for Aussie founders who want to plug into the US ecosystem and raise from US angels and funds. She says A16z, Sequoia and three female-led funds are already in the group. If you’re eyeing a US chapter, add yourself to the list. buildstateside.com → · @hollysanderz →

→ Raising help, US-flavoured. A couple of angels have offered to share what they know on raising in the States: Hailey (fundraising intensives for founders, mostly US contacts) and Caitlin Duryea (just off a US growth chapter, on whether US expansion is even the right move). Reach out if you’re raising and need a sounding board.

Put yourself forward:

→ Forbes 30 Under 30 Australia 2026 nominations are open. Finance, VC, media, entertainment, music, arts, retail, e-commerce, science, social impact, sport, AI and tech. Nominate someone. Nominate yourself. This is your sign. Forbes 30 Under 30 →

Drop your asks in the chat.

08 — JOIN THE CHAT

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

Every city, growing weekly. The chat is approval-only so we keep the spammers out.

🔗 Join the Aussie Angels →

Overheard this month:

→ “The girls are ON.”

→ “This chat really brings a lot of energy into my life right now.” — Franziska, newly in Sydney

→ “Vibes were high, we were too in it.” — Cathy, on the Adelaide girls’ lunch (no photo survived, because Adelaide girls do it better)

That’s the whole point. Forward this to one girl in your life who’d get it. Tell her to join the WhatsApp.

See you in there. 🤍

Brooke x

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Any excuse to be in a room full of ambitious Australian women is my actual joy in life. It’s the whole reason Aussie Angels exists. So Saturday at Vogue Codes was always going to be a good day for me. The room was beautiful, the speakers were genuinely brilliant, the energy was unmatched, and I left with a gift bag I needed a forklift to carry. Eleven years in, the fact that this event exists at all, that Vogue has spent a decade insisting women belong at the centre of the tech conversation, is a real achievement and I don’t take it for granted.

And. (You knew there was an and.)

I left a little frustrated. Not because the day was bad, but because it was so close to being extraordinary, and I think the women in that room could have handled, and deserved, more. So in the spirit of loving something enough to give it real feedback rather than a polite clap, here are my notes. Vogue, if you’re reading, I am sticking my hand up to help curate next year. More on that later.

Note one: twenty minutes is not a panel, it’s a trailer

Here was the format for most of the day. Three extraordinary speakers, one moderator, two questions each, twenty minutes total. Run the numbers. By the time everyone’s been introduced with the multi-hyphenate biographies they’ve absolutely earned, you have maybe ten real minutes of conversation, split three ways.

That’s not enough time to get anywhere good. You get the headline and the applause line, and then the moderator has to wrap because the clock’s already gone. You never reach the specificity, the how, the part where someone actually teaches you something you can use on Monday.

And when the timing slips, it slips unevenly. In the Big Tech panel, Laura Henshaw, who was excellent, spoke for a good chunk of the slot before the other two panelists had properly been brought in. I’m not mad at Laura. She was great. I’m mad at the container. Three women that good should never be fighting each other for oxygen inside a slot that short.

The fix is not complicated. Fewer panels, longer. Two questions becomes five. Give a brilliant woman thirty-five minutes and she’ll change how you think. Give her twenty and she’ll give you a soundbite. We came for more than soundbites.

Note two: “humanity first” is lovely, but it let us off the hook

The whole day ran on a humanity-first thesis. Slow down. Touch grass. Make things with your hands. Your taste is your own. Protect your nervous system from the algorithm. And look, I agree with almost all of it. The ancestral knowledge panel was my favourite of the day and I’ll defend the cortisol stats from the Unyoked CMO to anyone. (Twenty minutes in nature drops your cortisol by twenty percent. Two nights off grid beats yoga, meditation and CBT by fifty percent. Genuinely useful.)

But here’s my problem. A room full of ambitious women, many of them in tech, retail, media and STEM, gathered at a tech summit, and we spent most of the day being gently reassured that the human stuff still matters. Of course it matters. Nobody in that room needed convincing that they’re a person.

And before anyone reads this as anti-humanity: it isn’t. The human stuff is literally my whole thing. I build community for ambitious women for a living; connection is the soul of everything I do. But that’s exactly why I want more for them. When you get a room of women this capable together this rarely, you owe them more than reassurance.

What we didn’t get was the part where we face into the tech and actually skill up. We talked about AI mostly as a thing to be wary of. Bias in, bias out, true and important. But we barely touched what’s actually coming, or how a woman in that room could use it, build with it, or position her career and her business around it.

We barely touched the word “agentic” all day. Not the AI agents that are about to do real work on our behalf, not what they mean for our jobs, not agentic commerce reshaping how every brand reaches a customer. The single biggest shift in how technology will move through our lives, and at a summit about the future, hosted by Vogue, in 2026, it was essentially absent.

Meanwhile, the week before, in New York, (the self-described Anna Wintour of fashion tech, and honestly the title fits) ran the FASHIONOLOGY Summit with All Things Fashion Tech. Fourteen hundred people. Nine panels. The lineup, just so you feel it: trend forecasting and data, agentic commerce, virtual try-on, the creator economy, wearables, material innovation, and fashion tech investment. A scent salon and a wearables showcase as activations. That is what facing into the tech looks like. That is a room walking out with new language, new contacts, and a map of where the industry is actually going. I almost flew to NYC for it and I regret not.

And the news she’s covering right now is the exact conversation we should have been having. Sephora is partnering with Google so you can research, build a basket and check out inside an LLM, because that’s where discovery is moving. OTB, the group behind Diesel and Margiela, is doing AI try-on with Google Cloud. ZyG just raised sixty million to scale an agentic ecommerce operating system. This is happening now, to fashion and retail specifically, and it is going to reshape how every brand in that Vogue room reaches a customer.

Here’s the part that really got me, and I’ll declare my interest because I work at AWS, so this is my actual day job. Three weeks before Vogue Codes, AWS launched the Agentic Shopping Assistant, which lets a retailer stand up its own branded AI shopping agent in about sixty days instead of building it from scratch over years. The flagship example? The Kate Spade AI Gift Concierge, built by Tapestry, which guides a shopper to the right gift in conversation. That is fashion x tech. That is a handbag brand running a production AI agent, live, right now. Accenture reckons more than thirty percent of online commerce could run through AI agents by 2030, somewhere around 3.1 trillion dollars in transactions. So we had, in one Sydney room, a few hundred of the exact women who are going to have to navigate that shift in their careers and their businesses, and we spent the day talking about whether the algorithm is bad for our nervous systems. Both things can be true. But only one of them sends you home able to do something on Monday.

Vogue x fashion tech should be the easiest, most obvious, most powerful version of this event. The audience is right there. The cultural authority is right there. We could own this conversation in this region the way nobody else can. We just have to be brave enough to go deeper than “slow down and touch grass.”

And the moment that summed up the whole miss: Arms Rosenberg, who has built a global fund run by AI agents trained on her own brain, sat on stage and let investing get waved off as “boring,” just spreadsheets and data. I sat there a little stunned. Investing is not boring. Investing is the single most direct mechanism women have to build actual power, the thing every other panel that day was quietly begging for. We talked about closing the women’s health gap, paying female athletes properly, getting women into the rooms where systems get built. All of it runs on capital. All of it runs on women owning assets and compounding them.

Calling that “boring” in a room full of ambitious women is the problem in miniature: we reached for the relatable, self-deprecating framing when we could have taught the room how to actually do the thing. Arms could have spent twenty minutes on how she thinks about conviction and risk and price targets, and we’d have walked out richer, literally. Instead we got “it’s just data.” That depth was right there, and we left it on the table.

Note three (a brief intermission for the funniest moment of the day)

The Qantas panel, on the psychology of the twenty-plus-hour Project Sunrise flights, was genuinely interesting. Human-centred design, lighting that mirrors your destination so a sunrise rolls from the front of the plane to the back, ten years of research with the Charles Perkins Centre. Cool stuff.

But I will be thinking until I die about the bit where they proudly unveiled, as a design innovation, a “wellbeing zone” so that economy passengers can stand up and move around. The only airline in the world to specifically design a space where the people in economy are allowed to have a body. Girl. That’s an aisle. We’ve reinvented the aisle and put it in a deck. I laughed. I’m still laughing. Iconic, no notes.

What we did cover, and what was actually great

I don’t want the notes to drown out the wins, because there were real ones. The highlights, in scannable form:

On the medical panel (the best content of the day): Professor Kate Drummond’s case for fixing a male-default profession without dropping a single standard is the cleanest I’ve heard. Define the real minimum bar, then actively favour the women who clear it until the culture changes. She’s doing it in neurosurgery right now, because the alternative is waiting two hundred years for equity. Two hundred.

On the women’s health gap: Lydia O’Donnell’s stat that only six percent of sports science research is done exclusively on women explains roughly everything about why we’ve all been training on a men’s plan with the hormones deleted. And the line every founder should pin to the wall: every dollar put into closing the women’s health gap returns three. It’s not charity, it’s the most underpriced market going.

On AI and bias (Dr Amandeep Hansra): train AI on history and you don’t fix bias, you automate it at scale. A heart attack presents differently in women, but the models learned the male version. Sixty percent of women’s-health answers from the top AI tools came back wrong. The only fix is women in the room building the thing, which is exactly the argument for a day like this existing. I just wish we’d spent more time on how to actually get into those rooms.

On the astronaut (Catherine Bennell-Pegg): until 1966 women in the Australian public service had to resign when they married. Banks wouldn’t give a woman a loan without a male guarantor until the seventies. But we put men on the moon in 1969. We could leave the planet before a woman could open a bank account on her own. Her reframe of the old line is the thing I wrote down twice: we say you can’t be what you can’t see, and she added, you can’t be what you can’t see yourself being. Fewer than four percent of engineers in Australia are Australian-born women. We are, in her words, leaving too much talent on the launch pad.

On ancestral knowledge: Maeva Heim of Bread Beauty said the thing I’m still turning over: the value of making things with your hands, the one skill AI can’t touch, and how that human craft gets more valuable as the world automates, not less. It flips the AI-doom framing on its head, the most human things you can do become your edge. A genuinely great idea, and I’ll be honest, also a comfortable one for a tech summit to land on. I wanted the panel pushed one step further: okay, so how does a founder actually price and protect that human value when the machines are this good?

That’s the follow-up we ran out of time for. And Liandra Gaykamangu of LIANDRA gently dismantled the whole morning by noting we’d spent hours talking about going to space to save the Earth, when Earth is already great, and maybe the constant push to be the best, the most, the fastest is the actual problem. Indigenous knowledge has held “by less, but better” for tens of thousands of years. Fashion’s discovering it this season and calling it new.

On money: Lucy Kough of Tap the Gap said start now, because time is the only ingredient you can’t buy back. Super compounds like a snowball, and a third of Australians have never once checked one of the biggest investments they’ll ever own.

On work: work is a mindset now, not a place, with three in four people already working across multiple locations. And the people hiring aren’t buying technical skills, they’re buying mindset: curious, adaptable, willing to back yourself. The TechnologyOne leader who said it traced her own adaptability to a childhood spent constantly moving, always the new girl. The thing you think is your messy backstory is often the exact thing that makes you hireable.

On founders: the angel investor’s filter for whether to back someone, are you real or performative, grounded in three things. Execution: do you have a product and talk to customers, or just a beautiful story? Feedback: when she gives you a note, do you act on it? Iteration: are you making the thing better than yesterday? She’ll watch a founder for months before writing a cheque. It’s a sharp filter to turn on yourself, too.

On AI, the reframe that stuck: Arms again, with the most useful answer to AI anxiety I heard all day. Her agents aren’t replacing her, they are her, accelerated: four decades of investing experience built into the system with her judgment at the core. The AI doesn’t sideline her expertise, it scales it. Which is the thing the whole day kept circling. Train AI on the male default and you automate the male default. Build it with women in control and it’s just leverage. So the better question isn’t “will AI take my job,” it’s “how do I make it an extension of my own brain before someone else’s becomes the default.”

That, right there, is the conversation I wanted the whole day to be. Who’s holding the pen, and how do you, woman in row 14, get your hands on it.

So here’s my pitch

I went to 3 large enterprise tech events last month and walked out thinking about a different gap. The rooms skewed heavily male, and for all the brilliant content, it wasn’t really designed to feel like an open door for the every girl just finding her way into this world. That’s not unique to one event; it’s most of the industry. And I say it as someone who loves this stuff and builds in it for a living: we have a long way to go on making these rooms feel like they’re for her too.

A month later I’m at Vogue Codes, which is the opposite room, full of exactly the women enterprise tech struggles to reach, and yet the conversation still didn’t quite hit the level I know it could. One kind of room has the access but not the audience. The other has the audience but doesn’t always push it. The summit that nails both, that gets the every girl in the room and sends her home able to talk about agentic AI like she owns it, doesn’t really exist here yet.It should. And it could be this one.

So Vogue, genuinely: call me. Let me help curate next year. Longer panels. Fewer of them. A real strand on what’s coming in retail and commerce and AI, taught in a way that makes a woman feel powerful rather than warned. Keep the humanity, it’s the soul of the thing, but pair it with capability so we walk out upskilled, not just inspired.

Because the women in that room already get it. That was never the question. The question is whether we’re going to hand them the soundbite or the toolkit.

Give them the toolkit. They’ll build the rest.

— Brooke x

May was a big one — macro, raises and AI all moved. This is the fluff-free version: what actually happened, and the so what for where you put your money, time and energy. Here’s your brief going into June.

Aussie Angels is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted — the room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are all in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other all along. These are the girls who get it.

01 — THE MACRO

The RBA hiked another 25bps to 4.35% in May. Headline inflation now tipped to peak at 4.8% in the June quarter (petrol, the Middle East, the usual). Markets are flirting with 4.7% by Christmas; CommBank is praying they don’t. Business confidence still grim (NAB -24). Consumer confidence ticked to 83 — still nobody is buying big-ticket items.

The one gift: the 12 May Budget made the $20k instant asset write-off permanent from 1 July, and lifted VC caps (VCLP $250m → $480m, ESVCLP $50m → $80m).

→ So what: borrowing is dear and customers aren’t stingy, they’re genuinely struggling — #cozzielives is real. Back founders who can grow without burning cash, and tell them to make the runway last.

Over to you: how are we all feeling about the small-business tax changes — permanent $20k write-off, bigger VC caps? Leave a note in the comments. I want to know if it actually moves the needle for your portfolio or your biz plans, or if it’s a headline that changes nothing on the ground.

02 — THE CHEQUE-IN

The boys raised $81m this month.

→ Ordermentum (Sydney hospo SaaS, 45,000+ venues) — $55m from Five V Capital. Boring B2B middleware always prints money. I’m just salty I didn’t do anything in this space back when Matt and I had this exact problem with our hospitality businesses.

→ Arkeus (Melbourne defence drone AI) — $25m Series A at a $100m valuation, led by QIC Ventures.

→ Lume (digital music platform) — backed by Lorde. Coolest cap table of the month, no notes.

Also worth clocking: a former Up Bank crew raised $4m pre-seed for Extraordinary Money (agentic AI for consumer finance, co-led Airtree + Triple Bubble). And ProcurePro pulled $15m for AI-in-construction.

YTD: $1.63B across 69 ANZ rounds, up 64.6% YoY. But rounds under $2m have declined four quarters running.

So what: rounds under $2m keep drying up, so genuinely good early founders can’t get funded. If you’re building, plan your raise around it. If you’re investing, that gap is exactly where angels do their best work — less competition, better entry price.

03 — THE GIRLS WHO ARE BUILDING

The number that keeps me up: in 2025, all-female founding teams got less than 0.5% of VC. Zero. Point. Five.

Three things worth looking at:

→ NSW finally launched its $4m Diversity Pre-Accelerator. UNSW Founders is running Impact X — free 10-week health pre-accelerator, scholarships cover childcare and travel (a novel concept apparently). Apps open 1 July. Newcastle’s FLIP NSW goes statewide backing 188 women founders, 50% reserved for regional. This is angel deal flow in 18 months. Track it.

→ UQ Empower demo day (7 May) — two to clock: Saipriya on RAPID (AI hospital triage — health + lived experience + real pain, the sweet spot). And Katherine building HomeHunter (one-stop rental search, big TAM, fragmented incumbents). Worth a coffee — DM the UQ Ventures team for intros.

→ Also keep an eye on Proseek Bio — Brisbane founder Michelle Hill just closed an oversubscribed $1.5m seed for OC-Triage, a blood test for early ovarian cancer detection. Up to 80% of suspected ovarian cancer surgeries are ultimately benign. She’s fixing that.

So what: women founders get backed early or not at all. If that 0.5% ever moves, it’s because someone wrote the cheque at demo day — not five rounds later once she’s “proven” and twice the price.

04 — THE MARKETING NOTES

Three things to clip and save.

→ Australian Made Week (18–24 May) — Andy Lee’s mockumentary fronted the 40th anniversary of the green-and-gold logo. 93% of Australians trust it. Free trust premium if your product qualifies. Consumer founders, take note.

→ IAB Australia dropped its LLM Prompting Framework on 20 May — aimed at fixing inconsistent AI use across advertising and marketing teams. The first vendor-agnostic playbook, built with Google, Adobe, News Corp and Reddit. The “everyone secretly uses ChatGPT” era is over. Read it before your next brief.

→ City of Melbourne’s “Melbourne at its most Melbourne” (Town Square × Zenith) — leaned all the way into winter apathy instead of fighting it. Masterclass.

So what: the thing people complain about most in your category is usually your strongest brand angle. Melbourne owned the cold instead of apologising for it. Find your version.

05 — THE AI CORNER

AI news this month, because it’s moving too fast to leave out.

→ Google’s Universal Cart landed at I/O (19 May) — one AI cart that follows you across Search, Gemini, YouTube and Gmail, hunts deals in the background, and can check out on your behalf via its new Agent Payments Protocol. Launch brands: Nike, Sephora, Target, Shopify merchants. The checkout rolls into Australia in the coming months.

→ Mastercard just ran Australia’s first agentic transaction — the agent-buys-for-you era isn’t a US thing anymore. 64% of shoppers say they’ll let AI help them buy, and a fast-growing slice never visit the retailer’s own site at all. My theory? Agentic shopping is fantastic for commodity or repeat items. Fashion? Luxury? Not so much.

→ Anthropic shipped Claude Opus 4.8 (28 May) — runs multiple sub-agents at once and works solo for longer stretches. The point for us: building software keeps getting cheaper and faster, so the moat is distribution, not code.

So what: shoppers are starting to ask an AI what to buy, and the AI only picks from products whose data it can actually read. If your listings aren’t structured for machines to find, they get skipped — even when they’d win on a real shelf. Tell every consumer founder or retailer you know to get AI-readable now, while it’s still a head start and not table stakes.

06 — THE MONTH IN ONE LINE

Expensive money, an $81m month, a 0.5% problem, and AI at the checkout. May was loud. None of it gets fixed by the funds alone — it gets fixed in rooms like this, where the people who build, back, buy and consume actually talk.

See you in the chat 🤍
Brooke x

Join the group chat. The conversation lives on WhatsApp — jump in here.

We launched the directory. Want to be listed? Fill in the form and we’ll add you.

Find us on socials @aussie__angels @brookekmoody

On the other side of a honeymoon and a W penthouse with fifty of you in it. We have levelled up.

We hosted three angel meetups (Brissy, Sydney, Sydney again) in the last few weeks and welcomed so many new faces. I am obsessed with this community!! We also dropped merch. If you missed out and want a cap DM me and I’ll see what I can do.

Going fully offline for seven days was just what the doctor ordered. A lot of the much needed brain space was spent dreaming up what’s next for us. That is of course when I wasn’t dreaming of my next pad thai, ordering yet another coconut marg, swimming in the Koh Samui sea, forcing my gorge new husband to make White Lotus tiktoks with me or reading 2 truly fantastic books.

My hot recs for this fornight:

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke — tradwife influencer wakes up in 1805 and has to actually live the life she’d been performing online. Anne Hathaway is producing the film. The people angry about it are the point. Read it.

Call Girl Confidential by Blue-Eyed Kayla Jade — half memoir, half CEO playbook. Hannah Ferguson wrote the cover quote. I’ve been a fan since the counting-money TikToks. She’s a storyteller like no other.

The Rally is dropping on the app store and this is the workout / mindset shift we all need. A supercharged beat-based daily walk designed for busy girls with busy minds. Our angel Rachel Lai out of Austin, Texas is on the founding team. I've been in on the beta and I’m sick for it. My new fave workout. Oh, did I mention we're a global girl gang?! Aussie Angels is a mindset, location is irrelevant.

Big June. Vogue Codes Summit, 13 June, Sydney — we’re going as a group. Pre-meet coffee details to drop soon. Make sure you have you tickets.

Forward this substack to one girl in your network who’d get it. Add her to the group chat. We’re taking over.

Love Brooke x

Aussie Angels is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat — and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it.

02 — NOTES FROM THE ROOMS

Spotify’s creator session in Sydney and the Social Summit in Melbourne. Two big rooms. Here’s what you need to know.

→ Community is the new luxury. Australians are spending 2x more on experiences than things. The brands winning aren’t building communities to serve the brand — they’re building for the community, with the community, and protecting that trust like it’s sacred. I will scream that last bit from the rooftop.

→ Reach is losing aura. Likes are underweighted. Shares, saves, watch time, retention are what actually matter — because a share means I’m putting my name on this. Josh Henry Hicks (Insightly Media) hammered this from the stage.

→ Niche + POV beats reach. Take a boring category and make it culturally desirable. Touchland did it for hand sanitiser. Layla at Dr Diamond is doing it next.

→ Independent is the future. Substack-flavoured, boutique-creator-flavoured. Brands scripting podcast ads are killing the medium. Let creators create. Jordyn told podcasters from the Spotify stage to stay independent and know their worth before going to a network.

→ Shoot Your Shot Wednesdays. Anna Mackenzie sends one cold outreach per week. That’s 52 opportunities a year. The math is the math. Pick one and send it this week — I want to hear who you DM’d. I’m reaching out to Anthropic and ShopMy.

→ Squeeze the lemon. Maddison Sullivan Thorpe on production days: if you’re investing in a shoot, bring every camera and every format. Phone, DSLR, tiny mic, your mum, your best friend. Mix lo-fi and hi-fi. One shoot day done right is five months of content. Stop over-producing single moments.

→ Good content beats production value. Shameless Media shoots its podcasts on iPhone. They built a media empire with a tripod and a perspective. You don’t need a production house, you need a take and the discipline to publish.

→ Sam Wood said agencies are dead. I disagree. From the Social Summit stage — Sam Wood saying agencies just spend your money on croissants. Lizzie Waley (Sundae Body), Monica Upton (Veritisi) and Loren Tomlinson (The Social Collective) sat with the take. My read: reckless advice for the scale and enterprise operators I work with. The agency model is changing, not dead. Boutique is where it’s at.

→ Listen-first or get left behind. Josh Henry Hicks again (the man earned his slot): brands need to stop running product-led calendars and start running listening systems. Track cultural signals, feed them into creative fast. The brands still on 6-week creative cycles are losing to the ones moving in 6 hours.

Full debrief on Amy’s 1800 Chatline pod — see Receipts.

03 — ANGEL OF THE FORTNIGHT

Meet Hayley Westoby. Sydney · Founder of Gambit Collective + Date Night + Top of Mind + SpicyBoi.

What are you actually building right now? Gambit Collective — a pay-as-you-go marketing agency specialising in marketing, brand experiences and personal branding. I also recently launched Date Night, an intimate female founder dinner series creating a safe space for women to genuinely connect beyond surface-level networking. I’m continuing to build my podcast Top of Mind — third year, top 10% of video podcasts in AU/NZ for the last two years, and finally entertaining sponsorships. AND I have a crispy chilli oil business called SpicyBoi. Safe to say I’m building a lot.

Most unhinged thing you’ve done for your career? First year of my business — got a Cannes Lions invite with a brand I’d idolised, two weeks notice, had to get myself there. Nine days out, I dropped close to $5k on flights, got a new passport, and got my ass over there.

What are you gossiping about right now? The friendship recession is real and nobody is talking about it loudly enough — women are lonelier than ever while being more “connected” than ever, and that’s actually one of the reasons I started Date Night. Also: cycle syncing as a business strategy. The women who’ve figured this out are operating on a different level and I’m obsessed with it.

The thing you’re most embarrassed to admit you want? Honestly? Nothing anymore. Everything you actually want lives on the other side of embarrassment. I want to build something that genuinely helps great people. Specifically women in business. Turns out when you stop gatekeeping your ambitions they start moving faster.

What do you want the angels to find you for? Founders who need a marketing, brand experience or personal branding partner. Female founders who want to come to Date Night. Anyone needing speakers around personal branding, marketing, women in business.

Where to find her? @hayleywestoby on everything · @datenight.aus · Hayley Westoby on LinkedIn · Top of Mind podcast.

→ Want the angel of the fortnight slot? Reply to this email and pitch me.

04 — WHAT THE AUSSIE ANGELS ARE MAKING

Beyond. You are all doing the most.

→ Remy Tucker — ON THE HOUSE just raised $1.7M Seed AND deployed 50 new machines nationally. Somehow at the same time. Brisbane-based, Purpose Ventures led, with UniQuest Extension Fund and Startmate backing. The product: wall-mounted dispensers in high-foot-traffic bathrooms that give you free organic period products, fully funded by the brand ad on the 32-inch screen above. The numbers are deranged: 94% uplift in brand trust, 76-second average dwell time (the rest of out-of-home gets 4 seconds). 4,300 boxes dispensed, 13,000+ free products, ~3,000 women served. Afterpay, Pillow Talk, Forty Winks and Frontier Touring already on the network. If you’re a CMO with a media budget and a soul, this is the buy. onthehousegroup.com →

→ Rachel — THE RALLY launches publicly and globally on 3 June. Our angel in Austin, Texas is on the founding team building the world’s first supercharged beat-based walk for busy women with busy diaries. Soulcycle energy meets running playlist meets meditation — a workout / brain reset you can actually do on a Tuesday at lunchtime. Life changing. Get on the waitlist. therally.co → · @therally

→ Rosie × Laura — Collagenie x Golf Fore Her. Rosie’s been quietly cooking on Collagenie (yes — collagen peptides for pets, Real Housewives partnership incoming, can’t make it up) for six months. Posted in the chat. Within days, locked into Laura’s Golf Fore Her show bags. Launching this week. The chat literally did this. @collagenie_pets →

→ Michelle / OVA — funded. Telehealth launches July, making women’s health and fertility integrative Chinese medicine accessible to regional Australia navigating IVF. Plus a TGA-listed Chinese herbal capsule for sleep landing later this year that actually works. Michelle applied for the $5k funding round we posted in the chat and got it to support the OVA expansion. This is what it’s all about. @ovaacupuncture

→ Ari — Athlinq launched in March. The app connecting athletes, agents and brands. Some of the biggest names in the country are already on it across AFL, AFLW, NRL, NRLW and cricket — plus beauty brands chasing athletes off the back of the Alyssa Liu Olympic moment. The Aussie women’s sports economy has been waiting for exactly this. joinathlinq.com →

→ Kirby — The Match Deck is officially in beta with clients already searching. Brisbane engineer in Defence by day, building this with me on the side. Matchmaking for founders who need to find their next tech resource, dev or designer without going through six agency intros. thematchdeck.com →

→ Jordyn — hosted Spotify’s creator session in Sydney and I walked out with five things worth tattooing on the back of my hand. They’re up in the notes from the room. Spotify is making moves and Jordyn is the one to watch.

→ Arielle / Process the Podcast (1) — Social Summit Masterclass live cut. Panel: Arielle (Cinema Thom + Process), Lizzie Mulherin (yes — our Lizzie from Solo Co, who also rebranded her cultural reads substack to How We Live by Lizzie (feat. a hot take on Emma Grede’s book this week), and Anna Mackenzie (portfolio career mentor), moderated by Rosie Boccamazzo. Topic: Reverse Engineering Your Creative Career. Spec work to land Mecca and Vogue. Building without burning out. Personal brand as the anchor. Listen →

→ Arielle x me — Process the Podcast (2). Arielle had me on to talk community and the whole episode turned into me gushing about this group. The Butler vs The Leader. The 50% engagement matrix vs traditional media’s 5%. The first 20 in the room before the 650-person waitlist. The entry question that skips surface small talk. Why we never automate community chats. I am in love with this community. The frameworks are mine. The receipts are yours. Listen →

→ Amy / 1800 Chatline — the full Social Summit debrief, with me. Amy Dickinson - the number 1 diva who birthed the summit — had me on for the whole download. The MAFS producer who tried to pitch me onto the show at year twelve of my relationship. The great honour of meeting little dad phil IRL. Fashions on field. And the actual hot takes that didn’t fit in this newsletter. Listen →

→ Sumana — Damn Gina hit market. Australia’s first Ayurvedic-inspired haircare line. Bootstrapped, founder-mum, pushing toward retail next. Needs an intro to anyone with distribution chops in the low–mid range. DM her.

Shipped something? Drop it in the chat.

05 — IN THE DIARY

Where we’re showing up.

3 June · Sydney — The Argonauts Series: The Open Boardroom (CEO Survey 2026 Launch). Havas Village, The Rocks. A real C-suite intel session, opened to the public for one night only. Sophie Auyeung, Paris, Mel, Levina, Izzi and Anne are already in. Email melanie@uagentertainment.com to get added.

3 June · Melbourne — Foundher (EOFY edition). Vee’s incredible-women-of-Melbourne gathering. Founders and leaders from across tech, legal, culture, funding, beauty, sexual wellness and marketing — sharing, connecting, swapping opportunities and having a cheeky vent. No pitches. No panels. No networking that feels like work. This month has a special EOFY add-on to get your house in order before June 30. StandardX hotel. Free. RSVP →

4 June · Sydney — Create Your Lore by Ponnd (Remi and Bella). Anti-networking, networking. An hour of honest conversation on finding your voice, building a brand people actually buy into, and making them stay. Panel: Jessy Wu (founder of Encour, AFR columnist, debut novel with Pan Macmillan), Holly Chapman (ex-Head of Brand at Papier — scaled collabs with The Met, Headspace, Reese’s Book Club). Hosted by Remi Dooley (Ponnd co-founder + CMO) with Kelsey McCormick (Coming Up Roses). 6pm at Ace Hotel Sydney. Early Release $45 / Standard $60 (wine + networking included). RSVP →

6 June · Sydney — Female Entrepreneurs' Wellness Reset by Sophie Auyeung (MYRRAR) and Bridg Tran (DUMP Breathwork). Transformational breathwork, goodie bags, light nibbles, real friendships not surface networking. 12:30–2:30pm at Hot Dog Yoga, Double Bay. $35 MYRRAR Inner Circle / $45 general. RSVP →

Roughly 11–15 June · Sydney — Maeva's BREAD-alum founder dinner. Maeva joined the chat this fortnight and the room went full code blue — founder of BREAD Beauty (sold last year), raised over USD $7M from Imaginary Ventures, Emma Grede, Rachel Zoe and the Harrys fund, locked a Sephora USA contract before product existed. Now she's hosting a curated dinner for physical goods brand founders. Topic shaped by who's in the room. EOI open in the chat.

13 June · Sydney — Vogue Codes Summit. A properly stacked lineup. The collective angel moment of this fortnight — we’re doing coffee beforehand. Reply if you want in. Details →

13 June · Mornington Peninsula — Empowered Her day retreat at the hot springs. Mindset, panels, meditation, sheet masks, hot springs, the women who get it. Built by angel Jess Jackson — go. Details →

17 July · Sydney — UNSW Founders Female Founders Showcase. Hosted by angel Wonyoung. A night inspired by women who’ve done it, in a room with people who get it. RSVP → · EOI open until June 7 for founders who want to pitch, demo, exhibit or collab. Also calling in female DJs, food vendors and creatives to make the night. Interest form →

Next round of Aussie Angels IRL meetup dates dropping soon — Syd, Melb, Bris, Adl, GC? Watch this space.

Running something? We want to know about it. DM me.

06 — THE CLASSIFIEDS

The angels need things. The angels have things.

Asks:

→ Amelia — content buddy in Sydney (lower north shore). Filming solo, losing the inspo. Sophie, Levina, Paris and Hollie are already in. Jump in. @ameliabaweja

→ Polly — Sydney speakers on confidence and personal branding. Used Stef (Fuck Being Humble) and Daisy (The Self Hood) in the UK and is hunting Sydney equivalents. My recs: Andrea Clarke for women’s leadership, Alison Rice for the different angle.

→ Marika at HerHive — wants intros to women in health or finance. DM her.

→ Me — Singapore next week for NRF APAC with the NORA crew. Epic program for the Aussie retailers in town. If you’re heading over, LMK.

Offers:

→ Alycia / Project C Studios (Brisbane). Podcast production house + studio just off James Street — cyclorama wall for product shoots / headshots, plus a boardroom for hire. Mention us when you book. @project.c.studios →

→ Lizzie / Solo Co — free Builder Blueprint diagnostic for early-stage and idea-stage. joinsoloco.com/builderblueprint →

→ Jess Barker — transition coach for women bailing on the corporate gig to build their own service business. 3–6 month partnership, or a long weekend 1:1 retreat in Ibiza.

Capital:

→ Mercy / Zorentia — raising pre-seed via SAFE at $8M cap with a 20% discount. The platform helps founders launch tech startups. Just landed Macquarie University as her first institutional customer, with more universities and schools in the pipeline locally and internationally. Looking for angels writing cheques, or anyone who can warm-intro her to one. One-pager + quick call available. DM Mercy.

Co-founder seats — still open via Jade at Willis Global Family Office:

→ Death-Tech / Legal-Tech — Co-Founder & CTO. Technical, fast-moving, fluent in modern tools, joining a founding team of three. Gold Coast preferred, Syd/Melb/Bris on the table. willis.global →

→ E-commerce Consumer Brand — Co-Founder & CEO. Operator with e-com + China sourcing experience. Fitness-adjacent, not apparel or supplements. willis.global →

Drop your asks in the chat.

07 — JOIN THE CHAT

This newsletter is the highlight reel. The WhatsApp is where we actually live.

200+ angels, every city, growing weekly. Approval-only now so we keep the spammers out. You know you’ve made it when the JOIN OUR INVESTMENT bots are chasing you. DM me Aussie numbers anytime.

🔗 Join the Aussie Angels →

Overheard this fortnight:

→ “115 glorious angel messages to catch up on this morning — and the content didn’t disappoint.” — Kim Kerton

→ “I am craving female friendships who are into entrepreneurship.” — Sumana

→ “I can’t believe this group exists. It’s great to see a space like this.” — Sofia, newly joined

That’s the whole point. Forward this substack to one girl in your life who’d get it. Tell them to join the WhatsApp.

See you in there. 🤍

Brooke x