Dynamic Duos: ‘That friendship came first, and it’s what everything else is built on’
In this Dynamic Duos, we hear from Equity Mates Media co-founders, Bryce Leske and Alec Renehan.
In Dynamic Duos, Mumbrella each week asks two colleagues with a professional and personal affiliation to share with readers the importance of workplace relationships in an increasingly hybridised world of work.
Alec Renehan:
Bryce and I met at university in Canberra as fresh-faced 18 year olds. We lived together and grew interested in starting a business. There was an effort to import a shipping container of second-hand clothes, an ill-advised soup business, an application sent to Shark Tank, and plenty of other half-baked ideas that are best forgotten.
Through that time we grew an interest in investing – we didn’t have to start a business ourselves, we could also invest in the creativity and hard-work of others.
I knew nothing about investing – having grown up in a house where building wealth was saving for a house deposit and paying off the mortgage over your working life – but luckily Bryce had learnt a thing or two about investing growing up. So, he introduced me to the world of the stock market.
Our enthusiasm grew as we left uni and started our careers. And we decided to create Equity Mates to learn in public and interview some of Australia’s best investors.
8 years later, and we’re still going strong. We’ve quit our jobs and run Equity Mates full time. The business has expanded from one podcast, to a diversified digital media company across podcasts, YouTube, socials and email. Yet the mission remains the same: we just want to learn how to invest.
What we have learned is that investing is an important life skill that too many Australians miss out on learning. We work hard for our money, it should work hard for us. And yet, investing is not taught in school, many of us don’t learn about it from our families, and financial advice is inaccessible for most people. So we miss out. Bryce and I are motivated to play our small part in changing that.
Reflecting on the past 8 years, there is no way Equity Mates would be where it is without Bryce. He is the true leader of the business, able to bring people together and motivate them in a way I’ve rarely seen.
His commercial acumen has turned two idiots hosting a podcast into a real business, and his ongoing efforts has led to many of Australia’s largest financial institutions adding ‘podcasts’ to their media buying plans.
They say, don’t start a business with good friends or family, but with Bryce that couldn’t be further from the truth. Our friendship has only got stronger over the years. We spend all week together and still catch up on the weekend.
Bryce Leske:
I met Alec at the Australian National University, where we lived on college together and then towards the end of our uni stint, in a share house. We were lucky to have this group of mates who’d talk about business ideas – the kind of conversations you have when you’re young and think anything’s possible.
The thing with Alec and me was that we tried to make some of these ideas happen. We started a soup business that didn’t work. We looked into importing second-hand clothes from Europe, which also didn’t work (well it didn’t get off the ground). Between these attempts, we took whatever jobs we could get including assembling office furniture. None of it went anywhere, but in hindsight they were great learning experiences.
Around the same time, we started talking about investing. I’d been doing it since high school, but Alec was new to it. Those conversations became a regular thing for us, and we both got into learning more about how companies and markets worked.
After graduation, I went to Woolworths in Sydney and Alec went to Coles in Melbourne. That’s when we started Equity Mates – basically to keep talking about investing and tracking our own journey as we attempted to become better. We’d record our conversations and share what we were learning, with no intention for it become what it is today.
Alec is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I admire his critical thinking and have learnt SO much from him over the years. He’s the content king. He asks the right questions and pushes me to think things through in ways I wouldn’t have done otherwise. We’re fortunate that our personalities complement each other – where I see one angle, he sees another. We’re both curious and like figuring things out together.
But the real foundation is that Alec’s one of my best mates. We worked out early that we needed to separate business from friendship, especially on weekends. We still hang out, still have fun together like we did at uni. That friendship came first, and it’s what everything else is built on. Without that – and without Alec – Equity Mates wouldn’t exist.
Alec on Bryce:
Most memorable moment with Bryce: Watching Bryce organise both our first large-scale event, FinFest, for 2,000 people and his wedding. For some reason he scheduled them on back-to-back weekends. And, credit to him, he pulled them both off!
Best word to describe him: Determined.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour he has: Bryce has next to zero pop culture knowledge. Good luck trying to explain a meme to him.
Bryce on Alec:
Most memorable moment with Alec: Too many to list but one that stands out is when we both got to experience investing mecca – The Birkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting in Omaha, USA. It’s the Woodstock for Capitalism, and we watched the greatest investor of all time – Warren Buffett – answer questions on stage for 8 hours. How nerdy!
Best word to describe him: Thoughtful.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour he has: Alec is a very good debater and hates to lose. Annoyingly, he’s often right as well!
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