The Inside Story of Eucalyptus: Tim Doyle on Starting, Scaling and Selling a $1.6 billion business

**Bryce** (0:00)
What was the reaction as you were starting to grow and get a lot of momentum from the healthcare industry?

**Tim Doyle** (0:05)
Terrible.

**Bryce** (0:06)
Yeah.

**Tim Doyle** (0:06)
Terrible. Eucalyptus has been a very up and down journey. You're always earlier than you think. Always. It's early in GLP1s. 30 mil to 100 mil revenue a year pre-GLP1s.

**Ren** (0:17)
I even dream of a business like that.

**Tim Doyle** (0:20)
We actually don't need more startups. We have tons of startups. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a couple more one to three billion dollar exits as well in the next couple of years.

**Bryce** (0:28)
I got to ask, is the cash at your account?
Welcome to Equity Mates, a show where we explore what's possible in the world of investing. If you've joined us for the first time, a huge welcome. My name is Bryce.

**Ren** (0:43)
I'm Ren and today we are truly talking about what is possible in the world of investing and business. We are talking to one of Australia's most successful founders. I think we can say that now.

**Bryce** (0:53)
Absolutely.

**Ren** (0:54)
He is fresh off the sale of his business. Money literally just hit the account the day before we recorded this.
We're speaking to one of the co-founders of Eucalyptus, Tim Doyle, about the inside story of starting, scaling and selling a business for $1.6 billion.

**Bryce** (1:11)
We get into the nitty gritty. We understand what was happening in the deal room at the time, the hours that they were putting in, what it was like scaling such an incredible business here in Australia, and then what it was like exiting. We also get his views on the Australian budget and what he thinks that he's going to do to the Australian startup scene here in Australia. I loved this conversation.

**Ren** (1:32)
It was amazing. It was really inspiring. We like to think of ourselves as founders. I mean, we did found a business.
The scale of the founding and the size of the business was pretty apparent in our conversation. But I think for anyone that is interested in starting a business, who has an idea and who wants to think about how they can actually make it a reality, this was a great conversation. We should say for people who are less familiar with Eucalyptus, it is on the forefront of Australian telehealth. They've got a number of sub-brands which people may be more familiar with. There's Pilot for Men's Health, there's Juniper, there's Kin, there's Software, there's Normal which got spun out, and a couple of others. So they've got this portfolio of telehealth brands that just sold for $1.6 billion.

**Bryce** (2:18)
Well, if Eucalyptus wasn't enough, another brand that people would be familiar with that Tim was involved in was Koala.

**Ren** (2:23)
Yes.

**Bryce** (2:24)
The Mattress in a Box brand. So he has extensive experience in startups here in Australia, and we get the inside scoop on the lot.

**Ren** (2:33)
Well, if you enjoyed this episode, the good news is we've got plenty more in our feed. Wherever you're watching or listening, you can check them out. But with that said, let's get to our conversation with Tim Doyle.

**Bryce** (2:46)
Tim, welcome to Equity Mates.

**Tim Doyle** (2:47)
Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me.

**Bryce** (2:48)
So you've just had the entrepreneur's dream. You've exited your company in a significant way. 1.6 billion is what you sold your company for. Congratulations.

**Tim Doyle** (2:56)
Thank you.

**Bryce** (2:57)
What was the day like when you signed the deal?

**Tim Doyle** (3:00)
So it had been like a hell of a week because their team were out here.
You're kind of in this like very zero-sum style of negotiation. So we'd been sitting in a meeting room like maybe 18 hours a day.
And there's like maybe a team of five on our side, plus two investment banks, plus two law firms, plus their side. So it was a big group of people. And in the 24 hours before, like it was done, but we were moving towards the signatures. And obviously for these things, you have to have your whole cap table sign off. And so we've got some venture investors who will do this for a profession and very easily, angel investors who you can rouse if you need to. And then some large Australian corporates who treated this as more of a nuisance than a thing that they need to get done. So I was on the phone on a call to the Woolworths CFO at 1130 on the night of signing with half an hour to sign because yeah, so it was mayhem, it was mayhem. So honestly, it was just like incredible relief. And then because they're an American public company, they had to announce maybe 12 hours later. So we told our team at, we had to sync it with the announcements. We ended up having to make our team stay in the office until nine o'clock at night so that we could have a London, Sydney, New York announcement that was coherent from a timeline perspective. So that was a great experience, like that bit, but the overwhelming feeling at the time was just like fatigue and relief. So it was good to get it done.