Kai Lovel

Business Manager, Zipline

Fast Five is our quickfire interview series where we hit up some legendary movers, shakers and innovators with, you’ve guessed it, five big questions.

For classroom teachers, Fast Five is a great way to introduce your students to some awesome real-life changemakers and have them think about life as an entrepreneur.

In this week’s edition, we talk to Kai Lovel, Business Manager at zipline.io, a healthcare compliance platform.

Q1: Give us three words that describe your life as an entrepreneur.

Curiosity. Serendipity. Kaizen (striving for continuous improvement).

Q2: Tell us a little about your current role. What does a day in the life of you look like? 

I’m at Zipline.io, a B2B technology company that gives healthcare providers the tools to nail their frontline compliance.

In my role, I focus on two main areas – help our CEO with his day-to-day priorities (EA <> Chief of Staff hybrid) and work with our CPO (Chief Product Officer) in our Product Exploration/R&D efforts.

I’m early on in my career, and I like how this role allows me to work with folks across the organisation and see what X function or Y team *actually* do.

Q3: Tell us about a massive flearning (failing + learning) moment for you.

I started a mini-business when in early high school, and it was a major fail (virtually zero sales after 6 months of my time + $). I was making t-shirts that I wanted.

I learnt a very formative business truth as a result; your job is to start with a deep focus on one market, understand their pains and validate your solution before you go any further in a business.

Q4: What’s one thing you wished you’d learned at school? And, where could people can go to learn more about this?

Can I share two things?

Firstly, I wish school fostered more of a self-starter mentality in me and my peers. They should focus on creating:
– more enterprising students who have ‘agency’,
– who take ownership of their own learning / career / life journey,
– who don’t wait for doors to open, but create those opportunities themselves.

This is what I love about the work Future Anything does, and other orgs like Youth Leadership Academy, zero2hero, IDEA Academy, SEDA College to name a few. They create a space for students to get up and own their own future.

Secondly, I wish school got waaaaaayyy more granular and tactical with personal finances. Coming out of school, I knew more about a P&L sheet than I did a personal budget, tax return, shares etc.

Where to learn more? The folks at Up Banking have basically built financial literacy into their product, by giving you the tools to manage your money.

On the investing front, Equity Mates is a great podcast/community to check out.

Q5: What’s one book, website or podcast that’s inspired you, and why?

I got sent the book Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Shelia Heen as part of pre-reading for a course I did last year. It completely changed my approach to giving and receiving feedback toward a place of generosity and gratitude.

I’m also a regular listener of ‘How I Built This‘ and ‘The Tim Ferris Show‘ which both highlight a lot of truly inspiring founder stories.

More about this week’s Fast Fiver, Kai Lovel

I’m Kai. I love building and growing digital products. I’m a dog person, I enjoy writing and electronic music, and I’m always a student.

Kai is one of over 50 entrepreneurs, changemakers and innovators who are supporting students in Future Anything schools through our Activator program. Read more and meet our 2022 Activators here.

Like this? If you enjoyed this interview, be sure to subscribe to Future Anything’s regular e-newsletter for more just like this. You can sign up here.