This transcript has been edited for clarity and checked against the available source transcript and recording. Filler, false starts, and obvious transcription errors have been corrected without changing the speaker’s meaning.
Gabriel: I think failure is very important. If you cannot deal with failure, you’re never going to take big enough risks. If you never fail, it means you’re probably not stretching yourself enough. So failure is very important.
James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s guest co-founded Lyka Pet Food and currently leads its operations. Previously, he was an associate partner at Bain, where he worked for over 10 years. Currently, he’s also an angel investor and advisor at various startups across Australia. He’s affectionately known as Gigi.
Please welcome to the show Gabriel Guedes.
Gabriel: Thanks, James. Thanks for having me here.
GG at University#
James: Amazing, mate. It’s fantastic to have you on the show. I’m keen to dive into your experience across such a wide variety of domains, but I want to wind back the clock to start. When you finished university and began your career, you went straight into Bain. What was that transition from university to work like, and what opportunities did you initially have in mind at the time?
Gabriel: That’s an interesting question. Before joining consulting, I tried working in industry. By trade, I’m a production engineer, so I think my career was supposed to be more industry-driven. I did some internships in the area. For instance, I interned in the logistics department at Procter & Gamble in South America. I also did some other, smaller internships while completing my master’s degree. But the more internships I did in engineering or corporate environments, the less I wanted to be an engineer. That’s what led me to explore consulting, where I thought there was a good blend of the analytical work I would do as an engineer and the opportunity to explore strategy and business.
In the end, I did a junior internship in consulting too, which was much better than my time in the other areas. For me, it was a no-brainer to continue exploring from there.
James: That’s pretty interesting. As you started at Bain and got into things, what particularly drew you to consulting? You mentioned that you generally enjoyed it more, but were there any particular aspects of that world that really excited you?
Gabriel: There were a few things. The first was optionality. I had realised that I didn’t want to be an engineer, and I had a little bit of a crisis: what did I want to do? Consulting seemed like a good place to park myself for at least a couple of years, where I could work without guilt and keep plenty of doors open.
But once I started doing the job, I really enjoyed a few elements of it. For instance, I liked working in a high-performance environment with a lot of smart people tackling hard problems. I think it’s underrated how much the people you work with influence you and how much you can learn. The learning was fantastic across many different dimensions, from hard skills such as modelling and communication to problem-solving and working with others. Working with others is something you might take for granted, but it’s a skill in itself.
Working in High Performance Environments#
James: What was that environment like? You mentioned the number of high performers. When you first started, was it a bit of a shock? Did you have to raise your level? How did you find it?
Gabriel: It was a bit daunting in the beginning, to be fair. I started as an intern. I had done some internships before, but I had never worked full-time, and an internship in consulting can sometimes involve more hours than a full-time job somewhere else. That was also a shock in the beginning.
But the environment was quite structured in progressively teaching you and helping you ramp up. There was a lot of support, both formally, through training and inductions, and informally, through an apprenticeship model in which you learned from the people you worked with. They created an environment where it was easy to ask questions, work with people and learn from them.
James: That’s pretty cool. I think a lot of people, myself included, form ideas about what these places are like. It’s interesting to speak to people who work there or have worked there.
Highlights and Lowlights of Consulting#
James: Looking back on your experience there—you were there for quite a long time—what was the highlight? And perhaps even a lowlight, or something you didn’t like about working in consulting?
Gabriel: I stayed there for 11 years, so obviously there was a lot that I liked; otherwise, nobody lasts that long. For me, the highlights definitely outweighed the lowlights. I really enjoyed working on high-stakes problems. Companies hire consultants for a reason, and consulting is obviously a very expensive service. By definition, you end up working on the problems that are most important to those companies. Even from an early stage in your career, being able to work on strategic themes at the top of the agenda for the company, the CEO and the board is very motivating. It also accelerates your learning because you’re exposed to such big problems early in your career.
The other part I enjoyed was the people. As I mentioned, there were a lot of high-calibre people. Bain, in particular, placed a big emphasis on being both high-calibre and low-ego, so everybody felt friendly and welcoming. Most of my best friends are either from Bain or ex-Bain. Over the past 10 years, I built those relationships, and I met my partner through Bain as well. Having like-minded people in that environment was very conducive to having fun, meeting lifelong friends and thoroughly enjoying the job.
The last thing I enjoyed was the type of work. The day-to-day work was something I really liked, and that remained consistent across my different tenures. Over the 10 years I spent there, I started as an intern and left as an associate partner. The work changed a lot throughout that period, but the day-to-day experience across those 10 years was very enjoyable. That’s why I stayed.
In terms of lowlights, there are the classic things: very long hours, lots of travel and less control over your personal life. You might suddenly be staffed on a different case, which turns your routine upside down, and you might work very long hours, depending on the project. That’s a reality. That said, it wasn’t something that made me regret anything. We learned a lot during those intense periods as well.
Biggest Learnings From Consulting#
James: Those kinds of things build a lot of resilience as well. Continuing that thread, what are some of the biggest lessons you took from that period and still apply to your work today?
Gabriel: It’s interesting because, if I had planned my career to reach where I am now, I don’t think I would have seen consulting as the natural path. But having followed it, I feel it was the perfect path to prepare me for what I do today. That happened somewhat by coincidence. I was never too deliberate or precise about my trajectory, but it worked out well.
There were soft skills such as communication and dealing with all types of stakeholders. As a consultant, I think it’s the same as being a COO: you might need to deal with the CEO, the board and investors in high-stakes conversations, or perhaps negotiate with key suppliers, all the way through to working with operations staff on the shop floor. As a consultant, you work across that whole range, and my day job nowadays is the same in the end. Learning how to operate in such different environments, which require different skills, is quite important.
Another element is managing a team. As a consultant—or at least once you become more senior—you end up having to manage a high-performance team. Managing a high-performance team is easier in one sense because the high performers get the job done themselves. On the other hand, it also poses challenges around motivating that specific cohort and providing career opportunities, learning and development.
That’s very valuable in a startup because people who join startups are often highly motivated, keen and ambitious. They have strong similarities with people who go into consulting, and some are ex-consultants as well. Bringing that type of leadership to Lyka has been invaluable, as has recreating some of that high-performance environment within our company.
I also still use the technical expertise I obtained. My career at Bain was a bit atypical compared with that of a regular consultant: I was much less of a generalist. I specialised in operations quite early in my career, and I’m still working in operations now. Many things I learned in those days—manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, procurement and contract negotiations—are still quite useful.
Even the less appreciated topics, such as organisational structures, administration and understanding how the backbone of a company works, are relevant. Organisational restructuring is the type of project consultants don’t really like doing, but those projects become very important when you leave consulting and go to work at, say, a startup where you’re building a structure, or at a corporation. They help you understand how a company works. Those lessons are still very relevant today.
Is consulting a good path to operations?#
James: You mentioned that, looking back from where you are now, you might follow a similar path again. Would that be your advice to someone who wants to work broadly across operations, perhaps in the startup landscape? Is consulting, whether at Bain or another consultancy, one of the best ways to get where you are?
Gabriel: It’s hard to say because, as I mentioned, I was never very mindful about planning my career. I kept doing consulting because I enjoyed it, and I kept working in operations because I really enjoyed that. I only moved to Lyka because it was founded by my partner and it felt like my startup to an extent; I helped her co-found it when we launched. Otherwise, I would never have left consulting.
There was no careful planning, which makes it hard for me to tell somebody just joining the workforce that they should plan carefully. Looking back, it looks great, but the decisions didn’t feel the same when I was making them.
What I suggest is finding a mix of things that give you optionality, as consulting did for me. I parked my career there for 10 years until I found my life’s work, which is Lyka now. But those 10 years were very purposeful: I learned a lot, and they directly prepared me to do what I’m doing. That doesn’t mean everybody needs to spend 10 years doing something while waiting for their opportunity, but it was very helpful for me.
Secondly, I think optionality is great, but it can be dangerous. If you retain too much optionality for too long, you might end up knowing a little bit about everything but nothing too deeply. To an extent, some degree of specialisation, or narrowing your path, is also important. For me, that was working in operations through Bain. I specialised very early; pretty much 98% of my career has involved operations themes. Whenever I did something that wasn’t directly related, I would quickly try to jump back to something that interested me more.
In the end, that made it a natural move for me to join Lyka as the company’s COO and CFO because of the experience I had accumulated. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t have joined Lyka if I’d had a different experience, but the expertise I built over that time makes my life much easier now.
Striking the right balance is hard, but that’s the trick: find things that enable you to jump between one interest and another without those jumps being too far apart in terms of capability. That way, you develop a form of specialisation that gives you a competitive advantage.
James: That’s a good tip. You mentioned the start of Lyka, your move from Bain and then beginning to work there. When did you first hear about Lyka as a possibility? I’d love you to dive into that story.
Gabriel: The story of Lyka starts with our dog, who is also called Lyka. When she was about five or six years old, she began having some health issues. Anna, my partner and the founder of Lyka, researched why such a young dog was having these problems. Her teeth weren’t in great condition, and the vet wanted to remove some of them. Anna’s research led her to realise that the food was the problem. That was eye-opening for us, so we started cooking for Lyka at home.
She improved over time. Within a few weeks, she was already much better, and her teeth were looking better too, even though they were damaged. More than that, people at the dog park would say, “She’s looking so much better. What happened to her?” We would tell them about it.
We continued this for a couple of years until Anna decided the idea had enough momentum behind it to become a startup. She thought she should take it more seriously and cook not just for Lyka, but for every dog. She started researching and realised that the market was big and presented a great opportunity. She decided to quit consulting to start Lyka. At the time, I took a three- or four-month career break to help her.
Together, we launched Lyka in early 2018 with a very simple minimum viable product. I then returned to Bain as a consultant while Anna ran the business on her own. It was still a small startup, so it made more sense for me to work as a consultant, support her on weekends as needed and help finance the business while she took the leap of faith to quit and run it full-time.
We did that for a couple of years, until we raised our pre-seed round and then our seed round. By then, the business and the amount of money we’d raised were big enough that my continuing to work at Bain wouldn’t make a difference to the company’s funding. The most value I could add was to work on it full-time. We decided it was better for me to jump into Lyka too—all hands on deck. That was about two years ago, and I haven’t looked back.
James: It’s going very well at Lyka, so congratulations to you and your partner. You’ve done something really cool, and it’s turning into a fantastic opportunity. You spoke about Bain’s high-performance culture and trying to recreate it in a startup. Lyka has a decent-sized team now. When you’re building that team, what traits identify someone who will fit the culture, solve problems independently and perform highly?
Gabriel: In a startup, that’s a bit harder to define than it is in consulting. A startup has many different roles, and every role requires different skills, whereas the average consultant is much more uniform.
For instance, at Lyka we have all the capabilities a classic startup or SaaS business would have: engineering, customer care, marketing and product. We also have everything an e-commerce business has, including fulfilment and logistics, as well as everything a manufacturing business has, because we manufacture our food. It’s hard to use a single metric to measure everybody as uniformly as you would in consulting.
We do a few things to nudge the company towards that high-performance world. First, we evaluate everybody on their subject-matter expertise. To work in certain areas, you need to know the field. If you want to be a coder—a developer—you need to know how to code, and we’ll test that.
Beyond that, we believe people should not only be subject-matter experts but generally smart. Rather than being deep in just one area, their intelligence should enable them to learn across different subject areas. That’s very important in our complex environment, where the business is so vertically integrated. People need to understand the context not only of their own work but also of other areas and work well across them.
The third point is how the person fits our culture, including their ability to collaborate and their belief in our mission. We want someone who is genuinely mission-driven and can work well with others. Because we’re all there for the same mission, everybody understands what we’re trying to achieve and collaborates well. That’s probably the hardest part to measure because it’s much less tangible, and it’s difficult to get to know someone when all you have is a few hours of interviews. We have several stages in our interview process that try to test those qualities as well.
James: That’s interesting. It’s a tricky nut to crack: getting to know as much as you can about someone in a short time and trying to determine whether they’re suitable.
Gabriel: Part of what we do is also let candidates get to know Lyka as much as possible through the process. We’re interviewing each other, and either side can identify if it isn’t a good fit. We’re very open about our vision, our mission and the type of company we are. Somebody might be a high performer but not completely align with our mission, ethics or way of working. If they discover during the interview process that it isn’t a great match, that’s also a good outcome. It’s better for both sides to discover that then than six months later, after a conflict or another issue arises within the company.
James: I totally agree. When you’re interviewing, you should view the process as more than trying to get into the company. The company is interviewing you as much as you’re interviewing it.
Gabriel: Correct. Our interview process ends up being high-touch and lengthy, with multiple rounds of long discussions, but I think it’s worth the investment for both sides. If you’re interviewing at any company, it’s important to take the time to ask all your questions and really understand what the company is trying to achieve, what the role is and what the culture is like.
We might conduct 10 interviews that don’t work out, but when one does and somebody joins Lyka, we’re much more confident that person will be successful. To an extent, it saves us time: the upfront investment saves time later in onboarding and reduces the rate at which people in roles need to be replaced.
The Vision for Lyka#
James: You also mentioned your vision for the company. What are you and the team setting out to achieve over the next few years?
Gabriel: Lyka is a pet-wellness business. That’s how we envision the company nowadays. We started as a dog-food business, and food is a great starting point because it’s the purchase pet owners think about most. First, it’s the most expensive. Second, if a dog doesn’t like the food, it won’t eat it, and if the food doesn’t agree with its belly, it can get very messy.
Through healthy pet food, we build trust around food and nutrition. The category is still emerging, so there aren’t many businesses in it, and we’re the main voice on nutrition in the space. Even the typical vet is a generalist. After graduating as a vet, becoming a nutritionist requires another couple of years of postgraduate study. Most vets end up going into surgery or working with large animals because that’s probably where most of the money is in the industry. There’s a gap in nutrition, and we can fill it.
Through our knowledge, we can earn the right to talk to customers about other aspects of nutrition and, eventually, wellness. We’re now launching our supplement line, which complements our food and is our first step into therapeutics beyond food. From there, we’ll develop a vet-specific line: products for pets with specific diseases or conditions, such as heart disease or liver disease. That will enable us to move further into wellness.
Wellness is a big area, so the sky is the limit to an extent. We could move into wearables, for instance, which would allow us to track sleeping patterns, movement, gait and itchiness and take action on that information. If a dog is itching too much, we could identify that and help the owner with advice from our team and with our products, such as a supplement that reduces itchiness.
With all the information in one place, the customer could see real-time feedback. They might say, “My dog used to itch, and now that it’s taking the supplement, not only can I see that it isn’t itching, but I can tangibly monitor that in the app.” From there, we could continue moving upstream in the wellness space, perhaps one day establishing preventive-care wellness clinics. That’s not a few years away, though; it’s more likely many years away.
James: That’s pretty exciting.
Gabriel: We would also expand from dogs to cats down the road and eventually go abroad, potentially to nearby markets such as Southeast Asia or Asia in general.
James: There’s huge potential and a lot of different things to explore.
How would he restart Lyka#
James: If you could restart Lyka, is there anything you would do differently? Or is there an area you’re currently focusing on improving based on your startup journey so far? I guess it’s a slightly tough question.
Gabriel: There are obviously lots of small things here and there that make you think, “I wish I’d known this before; it would have been a bit smoother.” But I don’t think we have any big regrets or anything where we’d say, “This was completely wrong. We didn’t do it well.”
With four years of hindsight, you learn so much that you think you could do it much more smoothly and quickly if you started again. But I think we handled the strategic steps and main decisions well. There are probably some small things we could improve and fix, but that’s always easy to see in hindsight.
Advice for people starting companies#
James: Let’s say someone wants to start a company and asks you for advice. What key things have you focused on that have gone particularly well in building Lyka and that you think are very important for other founders?
Gabriel: In the beginning, the most important thing is to listen to your customers and really understand them so that you find product-market fit as soon as possible. Founders tend to want to scale fast, but without the right product-market fit, scaling only magnifies the problem. I strongly encourage early-stage founders to talk to customers, understand what they’re doing and, ideally, be a customer themselves.
For Lyka, it was very serendipitous. Anna came across the idea because we were already cooking for Lyka, so we understood the space and the customer; she was the customer. That helped us stay ahead and think the way the customer thinks because we literally had the same mindset. It can translate into better features and better ways to delight your customers by anticipating all their expectations and delivering in a way that feels natural.
Understanding that from the beginning is important. Once you’re confident it’s working, you can begin scaling the business. Otherwise, a lot of resources are wasted. The more you invest in the wrong path, the harder it is to turn around later.
Biggest Learning From Startups#
James: What has been your biggest personal lesson from working at this startup?
Gabriel: There are so many, and there are many dimensions to learning. When I’m tackling different problems here, there’s no problem where I would say, “I have no idea how to solve this.” I might not know the answer, but I have a process: I think I know the steps to get there and solve the problem. That’s something I bring from being a consultant. But there are many different lessons within those steps, so it’s hard to choose only a few.
If I compare working at a startup with working at a big corporation, as I did through Bain, I see striking differences in several respects. At a startup, you’re the last gatekeeper: if you don’t do something, it doesn’t get done. In a big company, invisible hands keep the machine going. You’re trying to change things—the strategy or some aspect of performance improvement—but the day-to-day work continues.
At a startup, you need to balance your time carefully between thinking about the big picture and doing the day-to-day work that won’t get done if you don’t do it. As we grow and become a scale-up, that mindset needs to change again. We need to become a big company by putting processes in place and hiring more people, creating a structure that enables the company to run without being too dependent on certain individuals.
That’s been an interesting lesson for me: every stage of the company requires a different approach. Just as you think you’re learning and becoming comfortable, you need to switch again for the company’s next stage, and the next wave of lessons arrives.
James: That’s interesting. My next question was going to be about the differences between where you are now and Bain, but I think you’ve answered that. You also do a lot of things outside Lyka.
GG Extracurriculars#
James: You’re an advisor and, as I briefly mentioned in the introduction, you’re involved with organisations such as AfterWork. You’re also an investor. How did you start getting involved in these activities outside work?
Gabriel: To be completely honest, my view of the startup world was quite limited before we started Lyka—before 2017, when we were thinking about it, and 2018, when we got our teeth into it. I wasn’t very involved. But when you start working on a startup, the whole ecosystem opens up. You see everything that’s out there, talk to founders, encounter other ideas and end up in conversations that can lead to investments, because some of those founders are fundraising. That’s when informal conversations started leading to opportunities for me.
I also think the Australian ecosystem was much less sophisticated in 2017 and 2018. There were fewer funds, and the funds were smaller than they are today, so the reliance on angel investors was greater. These opportunities arose more often than they do today. Now, if you simply say, “I’m an angel,” not many people will necessarily send you a pitch deck. That was different four or five years ago, when the ecosystem was still developing.
I progressively became more involved, either by making small investments or advising startups I crossed paths with. Then I started getting involved in funds. For instance, I’m a fellow at AfterWork, a community-based fund where we share a lot of experiences. There’s also a lot to learn from how they approach things. Now I’m a venture partner at Metagrove Ventures, another fund where my role is even more meaningful. Becoming a venture capitalist happened step by step over a journey of four or five years.
James: You mentioned the amount of interaction between founders and people at a similar stage. Have the opportunities you’re involved with outside work provided real benefits to you in building Lyka?
Gabriel: Definitely. Each startup will have different problems, but the main themes are quite transferable. Many problems are issues or mistakes other founders have encountered. Their experience is highly applicable, although it obviously needs to be customised. As I say, it’s great to learn from your mistakes, but it’s better if you can learn from others.
Having access to this community and network is quite important. Whatever issue you face, you can ask someone, and somebody will have a view on it or will have tackled it before. You can then begin solving your problem from a broader base. As I said, there’s no problem where I think, “I have no idea how to find a solution.” That’s partly because I have access to people who can help if a new problem arises.
Failure that ended up being a success#
James: Another question I have is about failure. Sometimes something seems like a failure at the time but works out well in the future. Have there been moments in your life when something didn’t work out the way you wanted, but later proved beneficial?
Gabriel: I completely agree. To start, I think failure is very important. If you cannot deal with failure, you’re never going to take big enough risks. If you never fail, it means you’re probably not stretching yourself enough. So failure is very important.
There are plenty of situations like that in my life. Think about the story we discussed at the beginning: I wanted to be an engineer and then realised it wasn’t for me—the job sucked for me. I was three years into a five-year engineering course and thinking, “I really don’t want to be an engineer anymore. What do I do?” I later became a consultant, but at the time that felt like a failure. Why was I doing this complicated, long degree if I wasn’t actually going to use it?
I do think that if I hadn’t done it, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today—even physically, because I only made my way to Australia through my work at Bain.
James: University can be influential in helping you discover who you are. Most of the time, things do work out for the best, so I’m glad it has worked out that way for you.
Gabriel: You’re never going to know. Perhaps if I’d stayed in South America, another path would have brought me here or made me more successful. But that’s just guesswork, so I think it’s better to believe it happened for the best.
James: It’s important to see the best in situations. I’ve got one, maybe two, more questions before we wrap up. You’re a high performer, you’re achieving and you’re involved in many different things.
Who inspires GG?#
James: Who inspires you? Is there anyone you admire and would love to emulate, or whose advice you really take to heart?
Gabriel: There are several people. I’m against the cult of personality, where someone becomes a fan of a person and supports them in everything, particularly when the person is a public figure. Elon Musk, for instance, has this cult of personality: even when he’s doing the most horrible things, people still support him. I’m definitely not that type of person.
But many people have characteristics I really admire or have helped me over the years. Obviously, they’re all human and flawed in the same way I am. Some aspects of them might not be great, while others are fantastic. I cultivate several relationships in which I admire particular people for certain skills, types of advice or things they’ve done. They inspire me in those areas.
If GG could go back in time#
James: That’s a good perspective. The halo effect can make you think somebody’s qualities are much better than they actually are. My last question is one I ask every guest. We’ve spoken about your time at university, but if you could go back to Gigi in his final year, when he was about to go out into the world, what advice would you give him now that you’ve had all these experiences?
Gabriel: It’s hard to say. If that were a serious proposition—if I could go back in time and tell young Gigi something—I would probably pass on the opportunity. You run the risk of saying something that gets misinterpreted over the 10 or 15 years since I was at university.
Perhaps you end up chasing that thing because you think, “My future self came back just to tell me this one thing, so it must be extremely important.” You might really misinterpret whatever the advice is. I could say, “Everything’s going to be all right. Don’t worry,” and perhaps young Gigi would take that too literally, do nothing with his life and change its course. Or I could say, “Work harder,” and send him off on the wrong tangent. I would probably pass on the opportunity.
James: Fair enough. I guess that reflects how well things are going for you now and how much you’re enjoying where your life is. You wouldn’t want to mess that up accidentally. What advice would you give people generally—perhaps Australian university students nearing graduation and trying to work out what they want to do with their lives?
Gabriel: I would say that your life isn’t going to be decided then. At that stage, many people think, “I’m making these big life decisions now.” But in the grand scheme of things, whatever you’re doing is probably a commitment of a couple of years, if that. There’s so much more to your life and career. Don’t overthink these decisions too much, and remember that you can always correct course later if you aren’t enjoying what you’re doing.
James: That’s great advice. Thanks so much for sharing it and for coming on the show today, Gigi. If listeners want to learn more about you and the work you’re doing now, where’s the best place to go?
Gabriel: To learn about Lyka, go to Lyka’s website, lyka.com.au—L-Y-K-A. That’s my life’s work, so it’s probably the best place to see what I’m doing. If you want to connect with me, LinkedIn is probably the best way. If you search for Gabriel Guedes on LinkedIn, I think I’m probably the only one there. My DMs are always open, so please reach out if I can be of any help.
Thank you, James. It was a pleasure talking to you. It was a very good and fun conversation.
James: Thanks for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want my takeaways—the things I learned from this episode—please go to GraduateTheory.com/subscribe, where you can get my takeaways and all the information about each episode straight to your inbox.
Thanks so much for listening today. We look forward to seeing you next week.