Why this startup said no to the world's biggest mining company (and won)

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David Press was down to his last $7,000 with payroll due when a critical enterprise deal saved Risk Talk from collapse. After years of grinding through COVID lockdowns and cancelled flights, he and co-founder Stuart Farquharson built a voice-first safety reporting tool that now serves three of the world's five largest mining companies.
David is the technical co-founder of Risk Talk, a platform that makes safety reporting accessible for frontline workers through voice technology to solve a problem they heard directly from workers: "Why can't I just talk about it instead of filling out these shit forms?" Risk Talk achieves 97% transcription accuracy even in the loudest industrial environments and has grown to serve companies with 60,000+ employees globally.
He explains:
⬛ Why saying "no" to the world's biggest mining company over a feature request was their smartest product decision
⬛ How their MVP mantra "would Frankie use it?" shaped every design choice
⬛ Why they refuse to add "just one more question" - even if it costs them deals
⬛ How a single TikTok post generated leads from $40B companies
⬛ Being prepared to drive Uber with enterprise deals pending
⬛ Why building i18n from day one enabled their international expansion

Follow David Press
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-press-0020a516/
RiskTalk: https://risktalk.com.au/

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LinkedIn: /more-founders-show
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Follow Dave
LinkedIn: /daveberner
X: @dave_or_dead
YouTube: @daveordead
Website: https://daveberner.me
Sponsors
Kinde: https://kinde.com

فصول

1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. How their scrappy MVP made safety reporting accessible (00:01:25)

3. The founder grind and treating the podcast as a startup (00:02:03)

4. Voice technology making construction sites safer (00:02:33)

5. From ideation in 2016 to a real MVP in 2019 (00:03:26)

6. Building with Ionic then React Native (00:04:35)

7. Getting first customers through network and grind (00:05:40)

8. How Frankie shaped their entire product philosophy (00:06:32)

9. Building trust when you're only 6 months old (00:08:17)

10. Creating a market for voice-based safety reporting (00:09:17)

11. Early React Native headaches and building custom voice libraries (00:11:27)

12. Being early on AI and maintaining their moat (00:13:37)

13. 97% accuracy in deafening industrial environments (00:14:39)

14. Standing next to welders doing live demos (00:16:26)

15. Pushing back on customization requests from giants (00:17:33)

16. How voice enables multilingual safety reporting globally (00:22:37)

17. Testing Urdu and Hindi recordings in Saudi Arabia (00:26:27)

18. Meeting your co-founder through first-grade cricket (00:32:54)

19. Finding the right co-founder as a technical founder (00:37:48)

20. Customer-facing hires are "really, really hard" (00:40:07)

21. Engineers growing from juniors to product leaders (00:43:44)

22. AI as opportunity not threat with 9 years of voice data (00:45:14)

23. Personal brand struggles and that viral LinkedIn post (00:51:45)

24. "What's your safe word?" t-shirts at conferences (00:56:11)

25. Founder burnout: grinding teeth and Friday dirt bikes (01:00:34)

26. Down to $7k before the deal that changed everything (01:09:33)

27. One key advice: resilience is everything (01:14:25)