Ep211 – Jodie Imam (Co-founder & CEO – Tractor Ventures) on startup exits, scaling with content and life-changing personal systems
- June 12, 2025
- rohitbhargava
- Podcast
My guest for Ep211 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jodie Imam.
Jodie is the Co-founder & CEO of Tractor Ventures, which provides non dilutive capital (between $100,000 – $1.5M) to tech enabled companies.
Since launching in 2020, Tractor has deployed nearly $100M, has 230 customers and is tracking at $5M in annual revenue.
Prior to this, Jodie was the Co-founder of Occasional Butler which was acquired in 2020.
She was also a member of Cohort #1 of the Komo Club, and in this episode we dive into a range of areas including:
- Lessons from launching, growing and exiting Occasional Butler
- How she uses content to attract talent and customers to Tractor Ventures
- Systems and frameworks she utilises to manage a busy schedule between running a high growth business, multiple board seats, and a busy personal life
- How personal goals created through The Komo Club have had a significant impact on her number one priority in life
- And much more!
Timestamps:
- 00:01:54 Jodie’s background
- 00:03:29 How Jodie’s childhood shaped her perspective on life and business
- 00:05:49 Early career: building Occasional Butler and co-working space Depo8
- 00:07:39 The decision to go all in on Occasional Butler
- 00:08:50 What Jodie would do differently second time around with Occasional Butler
- 00:11:36 How to build credibility as an early stage startup
- 00:13:47 Selling Occasional Butler to Airtasker while raising two young children
- 00:18:04 Founding Tractor Ventures with Matt & Aprill
- 00:21:11 Early days of Tractor Ventures
- 00:24:10 Challenges with the business, restructuring
- 00:28:09 Culture design: 4-day workweek, 90-day scorecard & Level-10 meetings
- 00:30:14 LinkedIn content engine that drives both deal flow and hiring
- 00:44:09 Personal goals, The Komo Club & intentional parenting
- 00:54:49 How Jodie structures her day and week
Our partners:
A big thank you to Olivia Doherty, Andrew Fitzpatrick and Matt Allen 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:
Jodie’s Links:
People mentioned:
- Tim Fung
- Matt Allen
- Aprill Enright
- Andrew Fitzpatrick
- Olivia Doherty
- Dan Siepen
- Bryan Williams
- Dean Swan
- Cameron Falloon
- Janine Allis
- Leona Edmiston
Companies mentioned:
- Airtasker
- TaskRabbit
- Gumtree
- SBE Australia
- Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship
- University of Melbourne
- FinTech Australia
- Private Media
- SmartCompany
- Crikey
- The Mandarin
- Jim’s Mowing
- Innovation Bay
- Amazon
- Leona Edmiston
Feedback/connect/say hello:
- Rohit@startupplaybook.co
- @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
- /rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
- @rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
- My Youtube Channel
Credits:
Music: Paycheck
Other channels:
Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here
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