Ep209 – Mathew Ellis (Co-founder & CTO – Kismet) on vertical ownership and high performing teams

April 3, 2025
rohitbhargava
Podcast

My guest for Ep209 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Mat Ellis.

This episode is a little special. Not only is it Mat’s first-ever podcast interview, but we’ve also been close friends since grade 7. And many years ago, after months of trying, I finally convinced him to join as one of the co-founders of my first startup, StageLabel.

But Mat’s not on the show just because we’re friends. He’s genuinely one of the best engineers in the country.

He’s the Co-founder and CTO of Kismet Healthcare, a company tackling the deep inefficiencies in healthcare and disability services. Kismet has seen phenomenal growth in just a short period of time, scaling quickly with a small, high-performing team of 30 – including an engineering team of just five.

At Playbook Ventures, we were lucky enough to back Kismet from the pre-seed stage and have had a front-row seat to their incredible growth.

In this episode, we unpack some of the principles behind that growth, including:

Why smaller teams get more done
The 2 core values that make hires successful at Kismet
The importance of vertical ownership
Why every engineer on Matt’s team spends one day a month on customer support calls
And much more.

Toward the end of the episode, we also get personal and reflect on the growth we’ve both had across all areas of our lives. Mat’s also a member of Cohort #1 of The Komo Club, where we go deep on these exact themes, exploring how to build not just high-performing businesses, but high-performing lives.

If you want to find out more, check out TheKomoClub.com

Timestamps:

2:29 Mathew’s background and early interest in software
4:36 Discovering startups and autonomy
7:41 StageLabel and lessons in ownership
9:54 The importance of doing something you like
11:54 Lessons from early in his career that he applies now at Kismet
18:33 Transition to Xplor
23:53 Co-founding Kismet
31:09 Scaling with small, high trust teams, why vertical ownership (end-to-end accountability) drives better outcomes
39:32 Hiring for culture fit at Kismet: humility and ownership and what to look for in technical talent
43:54 Why Kismet does its best to scare people off in interviews
49:25 Overcoming challenges of scale and the sacrifice you make when starting a company
55:31 Personal Growth: From work first to a balanced life, how a holistic approach improves work performance
1:02:50 How Mat has stopped being a passenger in his own life
1:05:40 How taking care of himself properly allows him to perform better at work

Our partners:

A big thank you to Mark Woodland, Harry Travers and Bejoy Machumpurath for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Scendar

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:

The Komo Club – Details here

Mathew’s Links:

People mentioned:

Companies mentioned:

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Credits:

Music: Paycheck

Other channels:

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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