Mentor Spotlight 🔦 Brad Deveson
Brad Deveson was recently inducted into the UNSW Founders Hall of Fame for his contribution as a mentor in our startup community. We sat down with him to chat about his first introduction to mentoring, his three key mottos, and how funk guitar features in Deveson’s mentoring methodology.
Brad Deveson is a highly regarded mentor in the UNSW Founders community, so much so that he was awarded the Hall of Fame Mentor award at the most recent UNSW Founders Gala Dinner. Deveson has always had an attitude of paying it forward, and through his work, he hopes to inspire people to pick up the same habits when it comes to helping others further their pursuits and ventures.
Deveson started out in software and technology, following a programming path in his early career days. After a foray into music led to a career in programming, it was his first job – and first boss – who introduced him to the idea of mentoring.
“The guy who hired me was probably my first mentor, [giving advice] In terms of how you deal with clients, how you deal with difficult clients, how you deal with your manager, how you deal with your peers,” he told UNSW Founders. “Effectively, that was my first sort of emphasis on how it’s quite nice to have someone who's been there done that to say, ‘Okay, you're about to see a client this, do this, try this, don't do that.’”
In an unintentional act of paying it forward, Brad became a mentor to new team members.
“I found myself sort of unofficially mentoring younger trainee programmers,” he laughed.
From there, Brad’s desire to help others in their careers, no matter the field, only grew alongside his own career success. Brad founded, grew, and eventually sold a successful enterprise software company in 2014 (now called expense8). Since then, he has channelled his energy into mentoring and worked with a broad range of early-stage startups, inside and outside his field of expertise.
Speaking of his time mentoring early-stage startups with UNSW Founders, Deveson credited the element of surprise and diversity of ideas with the inspiration to keep him coming back.
“What I really like about it is, I don't know who I'm going to get,” he stated. “And then I suppose I don't know what the subject matter is going to be, which is always interesting. But I also don't know where they're going to be on the journey.”
Brad’s response to the Hall of Fame induction was humble and grateful.
“I'm not doing it for awards or accolades or fame forever,” he reasoned. “It's just something I'd be doing anyway. So, it was nice to be recognised for it.”
Deveson’s 3 Key Mottos:
Motto 1: When in doubt, DO SOMETHING!
Motto 2: Sooner or later, someone’s got to sell something to someone.
Motto 3: All bass players eventually leave to join a punk band.
Deveson’s Favourite Methodologies:
Lean Canvas, Design Thinking, Lateral Thinking, Funk Guitar.
And if you want to know the story behind the punk and the funk, you’ll need to book in some mentoring time to find out how it could connect to your startup.
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