Frank and Jacques Greeff sold their last company for $180M in 2022. They could have retired. Instead they’re building something I think other Aussie founders will be copying for years.
The last company
The Greeff brothers, Frank, Jacques and Ken, started out with a signboard business run from Frank’s lounge room. That became Realbase, a real estate marketing platform, which Domain bought in April 2022 for $180M upfront plus up to $50M in contingent payments.
The new company
Kinso is an AI tool that pulls your messages, conversations and contacts into one searchable place, a kind of second brain for founders and operators. Frank has said top VCs passed on it, so they’re funding it themselves.
The distribution
This is the part that stands out. According to the founders, they’ve spent around $550K on marketing Kinso and pulled 39 million views in a single month. That works out to roughly 50,000 views an hour, around the clock.
And it isn’t only the founders posting. The engineer, the chief of staff and the sales lead all make content. Every person on the team is a character with their own following, a bit like a show where each role has its own storyline. Frank has talked about filming 20 videos back to back to get the reps in.
Their stated goal, as reported, is for the brothers to become two of the best known names in Australian business within five years.
My read
The old playbook was build first, market later. The Greeffs are betting the other way: build the audience while you build the product, and treat attention as the moat. It’s working for attention so far. Whether it turns into a big software business is the question the next couple of years will answer.