Founding member launch — first 20 places

Go from idea to your first paying customer — with a business built to run, not held together with tape.

44 short lessons plus a ten-guide bonus toolkit. Each one ends with a real action and a self-check, and lessons unlock in order — no skimming to the end. By the finish you've installed the four machines every business runs on — marketing, sales, operations, admin — and put them to work chasing your first customer in Australia.

Built by the co-founder of Neo Living Australia
A$6M revenue · zero borrowed
Started at 20, still running it
Join as a founding member — A$199
What's inside

Seven modules. Forty lessons. One outcome.

This isn't motivation content. Every lesson is five minutes of reading, one concrete action, and a quick check-your-learning before the next lesson unlocks. The actions are the course — finish them and you finish with an offer, a live pipeline, and the numbers to know whether it's working.

MODULE 0

The Operator's Mindset

Business is four machines, not magic. When to move fast, when to be careful, and why you don't quit your income yet.

MODULE 1

The Offer

Pick a market with real demand, build the offer, price it from value and economics — then test it on real people.

MODULE 2

Marketing

Get attention without an ad budget. How Neo sold a A$30k product through a free Facebook listing — and how to run cheap experiments that teach you fast.

MODULE 3

Sales

Contact 50 prospects, hold real conversations, handle objections, close honestly. The exact playbook from Neo's first sale.

MODULE 4

Operations

Deliver without chaos: fulfilment systems, SOPs, suppliers, five-quote procurement discipline, problem ownership — and building a business that survives without you in the room.

MODULE 5

Admin

ABN, GST, your regulators (QBCC-style licensing), tax and the BAS, company vehicles, consumer law, unit economics, cash flow and controls. The machine that keeps the money and keeps you legal.

MODULE 6

The Machine Assembled

Your one-page operating system, resilience map, capital allocation — and a 90-day plan you actually execute.

Try before you buy

Read the first lesson, free, right here.

No email required. This is Lesson 1 exactly as members see it — judge the course by the product, not the pitch.

Lesson 1 — Business is four machines, not magic (5 min read — click to open)

In 2022 I was an engineering student at UQ with a growing suspicion that most of what I was being taught wasn't how the real world actually worked. A family friend mentioned prefabricated homes. My mate Marcus — a Danish engineering student in my course — and I started digging. We researched the market ourselves, found our own suppliers, and learned the National Construction Code from scratch. We had no capital, so we never borrowed any. Our first "office" was a cheap yard almost two hours' drive from our clients, because cheap was what the business could afford. Every time revenue grew, we moved closer. Today Neo Living sits in one of the oldest industrial precincts on the Gold Coast, doing A$6M in revenue, still with zero debt.

None of that was luck, and none of it was talent either. We ran the company the way you'd run an engineering project: document everything, build the process, know your numbers. That's the whole method, and it's what this course teaches.

Here's the belief I need to break first. Most people who want to start a business think it runs on something they don't have — a rare instinct, a big idea, connections, capital. So they wait. I waited too, until I realised a business is not one mysterious thing. It's four machines bolted together, and each machine can be built, tested and fixed like any other system.

Marketing is the machine that makes strangers aware you exist. Sales is the machine that turns that attention into money. Operations is the machine that delivers what you promised without chaos. Admin is the machine that keeps the money and keeps you legal.

MARKETING strangers notice you SALES attention becomes money OPERATIONS deliver without chaos ADMIN keep it & stay legal profit and numbers feed the next round of marketing — the loop is the business Every business you've ever bought from — the cafe near your work, the plumber, the software you pay for monthly — runs on exactly these four. Neo runs on them. Yours will too.

When something is a machine, two things follow. First, you can build it even if you've never done it before, because machines are built one component at a time. Second, when it breaks, you don't need motivation or a mindset shift — you need to find the broken part. At Neo, when sales dip, I don't wonder whether I'm cut out for this. I check the machine: are leads coming in? Are we quoting fast enough? Are we following up? One of those will be the fault, and faults get fixed.

Here's the metaphor I run the company on: you can't walk to a destination blind. You need a compass. The compass isn't inspiration — it's the systems and processes that tell you where you are and what to do next. Complicated goals become simple when you lay out the steps toward a target and check your heading as you go. That's why this course is called what it's called, and it's the promise I can actually keep: not "you'll get rich," but "you'll know where you are and what to build next," from idea to your first paying customer.

The common mistake at this stage is doing none of this and instead consuming more content, waiting to feel ready. You will not feel ready. I was 20, studying full-time, working out of a yard nobody wanted. The feeling of readiness arrives after the first machine starts turning, not before. So we start building immediately — and we build in the order a real business grows: decide what to sell, get attention, turn it into money, deliver it, keep the money. Four machines, one at a time.

One more thing before you start. Everything I state in this course about Neo is true and provable — the revenue, the timeline, the failures you'll hear about later. I'm still running the company. This isn't theory from someone who quit to sell courses; it's the operating system of a live business, written down.

That's 1 of 54. Every lesson ends with a "Do this now" action and a self-check before the next unlocks. Join the founding 20 →

Who it's for

Built for first-time Australian founders. Not for everyone.

It's for you if you've been thinking about starting something for months — or started and stalled — and what's missing is a straight, ordered path from idea to first customer, taught by someone currently running a real company.

Founding offer

Join as a founding member

The first 20 members get the course at the founding price. In return I ask for two things: honest feedback as you go, and — only if you think it earned one — a testimonial. That's the deal. Founding capacity is genuinely limited because I read and answer founding members' emails personally.

The FoundersCompass Course

A$199
Founding price. One payment. When the 20 founding places are filled, this offer closes.
  • All 44 lessons plus the bonus toolkit — ten practical guides covering Claude/AI, templates, copywriting, brochures, SEO and paid ads explained, website setup, the email/ads/payments engine, Fiverr and online outsourcing, offshore hiring, and using consultants and mentors — available immediately — read on any device, unlocking as you complete them
  • Lifetime access to the course, including every future update to it — and if video versions are released, founding members get them at no extra cost
  • Direct email access to me while the founding cohort runs (that's why it's capped at 20)
  • 14-day change-of-mind refund: email me within 14 days of purchase and I'll refund you in full, no questions asked. This is in addition to your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, which apply regardless and can't be excluded.
How joining works: 1. Send the form  2. I reply within 24 hours with payment details (bank transfer or invoice — card checkout is on its way)  3. Course access the same day payment lands.

Your details are used to set up your access and reply to you — see the privacy policy. You won't be added to any mailing list unless you ask. Prefer email? leo@founderscompass.com.au
The honest bit

What I will and won't promise

I won't promise you income.

Nobody honest can. Your results depend on your market, your effort and decisions I can't make for you. What I can promise is the material: the same systems thinking I used to build a manufacturing company to A$6M in revenue with zero borrowed dollars, taught in the order a real business actually gets built.

This is education, not advice.

The legal, tax and compliance lessons teach you what I did and what to check — they aren't legal, tax or financial advice. You'll be pointed to the official sources (ATO, ASIC, ABLIS, Fair Work) and told to confirm your situation with your own accountant or lawyer. That's also lesson one of running a real company.

Work with me directly

A second brain on your business — 1:1

Some founding members will want more than the course: sixty minutes, one on one, on your specific offer, your numbers and your next move. A$299 founding rate for course members (this will rise once the founding cohort closes). Best taken once you're a few modules in — bring real numbers and we'll work on the actual machine, not theory.

Email me to book a session

Questions

Asked and answered

Is this another get-rich-quick course?

No. If a course promises income, close the tab. This one promises a capability: taking an idea to a first paying customer with real systems underneath it. The sales pitch is the biography, not a forecast.

Do I need money to start?

You need very little, and the course is built around that constraint. Neo's first "office" was a cheap yard almost two hours from our customers. You'll learn to validate cheaply before you spend, and to treat every dollar as a test.

How long does it take?

Each lesson is a 4–6 minute read plus one action. The actions range from twenty minutes to a working week. Done properly, the course is a 60–90 day execution program, self-paced.

Is it Australia-specific?

Yes, deliberately. ABN, GST, ASIC, consumer law, Fair Work, licensing via ABLIS — the compliance module is written for Australian founders, which is exactly what generic overseas courses skip.

What if it's not for me?

Email me within 14 days of purchase and I'll refund you in full, no questions asked. That's a change-of-mind promise on top of your Australian Consumer Law rights, which apply regardless and can't be excluded.

Can I get help beyond the course?

Yes — I run a limited number of 1:1 sessions (60 minutes, A$299 founding rate for members). The course teaches the machines; a session applies them to your specific business. Email me with "Consulting" in the subject.

Join as a founding member — A$199