Night four under Mawenzi Peak, 4,300m - the question that keeps surfacing: what really sustains you when the climb gets hard?
This episode reframes success not as individual grind, but as collective growth. From Tanzanian reciprocity (“I help you today, you help me tomorrow”) to founder circles back home, we explore how community, built on shared values, generosity, and presence - becomes the true engine of abundance and ultimately growth, either professionally or personally.
What to expect in this episode
- Redefining success: shifting from individual output to collective strength
- Social wealth: the three pillars - breadth (community), depth (trust), and earned status (respect built over time)
- Abundance in action: lessons from Tanzanian communities and early-stage founders- How to build your network with intention
- Privilege as a resource: how to use access and knowledge to level the playing field
- The value-aligned room: why who you surround yourself with determines your trajectory
Voices you’ll hear
Sophia: local Forever Projects team member
Will Richards: Founder of Overnight Success and Senior Associate at Encour
Solai Valliappan: Angel Investor, Founder of Chai and Capital and Board Chair of Forever Projects (+ many other things!)
Pam Stevenson: Head of People & Talent at OIF Ventures
Morgan Biggar: Head of People and Culture at Zembl
Jess Walker: Venture Investment Principal at Wollemi Capital, Founder of UNA diamond and the Neon Lab, and Non Executive Director of Forever Projects
Chris Mimm: Lead Software Engineer at MyPass Global
To try at home
Map your abundance: List five people who make you better and five people you could elevate in return.
Give first: Offer advice, share a resource, or make an intro- without expecting a return
Audit your rooms: Are you in circles that stretch you or ones that keep you safe?
Practice reciprocity: Find one small way to “help today so someone else can help tomorrow.”
Mentions
Elinipa: The incredible Tanzanian artist who has kindly allowed us to use her music across the series
Harvard Study of Adult Development: proof that relationships predict health and longevity
Solai’s blog post: Immersing yourself into the Australian startup ecosystem
The Start Up Podcast: hosted by Chris Saad and Yaniv Berstein
The High Flyers Podcast: hosted by Vidit Agarwal
Pioneers community: Airtree’s community of women and gender diverse people
If someone in your network would love these conversations, please share along. Help us create Ripple Effects. This series is brought to you by Forever Projects, hosted by Soph Dicker, from the podcast So Invested - smart and unfiltered chats about money, business and building a life you are So Invested in. Inspired to join Forever Projects next Tanzania Immersion Trip in July 2026? Find out more and register your interest here.
Altitude creates literal and physical friction - as the air thins, each step comes with more resistance as you climb. Friction on a climb translates to the barriers and hurdles you face as you build in business and as so many have noted before - if you’d known how hard entrepreneurship is, would you have started in the first place?
In the third episode of Ripple Effects, we use the mountain as a lens to examine friction in building: early hurdles, team selection, context gaps, culture, and the new temptation to engineer a life (and company) so smooth that it stops creating value.
We contrast Australia’s increasingly frictionless technology tools and systems with the fundamentals-first frictions founders face across Africa and ask a simple question: Where is resistance actually the point?
What to expect in this episode
- Why naivety is an essential element to building a business
- Difference in friction between Australian and African contexts
- Building teams in business and how this can both add and alleviate friction
- How technology is engineering frictionless environments
- How deliberate tension strengthens companies, careers and our personal lives
- Practical ways to add back healthy tension
Voices you’ll hear
Jess Walker: Venture Investment Principal at Wollemi Capital, Founder of UNA diamond and the Neon Lab, and Non Executive Director of Forever Projects
Caleb Maru: Founder and CEO of Tech Safari
Local founders in Tanzania: Daniel Albert (Guardian Angel), Anderson (Ari Studio) & Gloria Kaya (Living Luha)
Pam Stevenson: Head of People & Talent at OIF Ventures
Solai Valliappan: Angel Investor, Founder of Chai and Capital and Board Chair of Forever Projects (+ many other things!)
To try at home
Add one deliberate friction: call a client instead of emailing, or write by hand for 15 minutes.
First-principles hour: start a task from scratch without templates or AI; note what you learn.
Mentions
Elinipa: The incredible Tanzanian artist who has kindly allowed us to use her music across the series
Catalyser: startup accelerator for high-performing migrant and refugee entrepreneurs
Diary of CEO: Law 14 speaks on friction
Bellroy: not sponsored but these bum bags are quite literally Mary Poppins bags!!
If someone in your network would love these conversations, please share along. Help us create Ripple Effects. This series is brought to you by Forever Projects, hosted by Soph Dicker, from the podcast So Invested - smart and unfiltered chats about money, business and building a life you are So Invested in.
Inspired to join Forever Projects next Tanzania Immersion Trip in July 2026? Find out more and register your interest here.
Today we begin the ascent of the world’s highest free-standing peak, Mount Kilimanjaro. At any true starting line - launching a company or scaling a mountain - the same question surfaces: What is your why? In other words, what’s the purpose that will keep you moving when the air gets thin?
In this episode, we look at why the startup ecosystem is so rich in purpose, why purpose matters, and how to define or redefine your own. You’ll hear founders and operators share how a clear why attracts your tribe, underpins resilient companies, and balances passion with practical necessities like capital. All while leaning into our first type of wealth from Sahil Bloom’s framework on how to redefine success: Mental Wealth.
What to expect in this episode:
- Why is purpose important, either professional or personally
- Frameworks to help you define purpose
- A perspective on how purpose can change across your life seasons
- Rituals or habits you can implement to move toward your purpose
Voices you’ll hear:
Will Richards: Founder of Overnight Success and Senior Associate at Encour
Solai Valliappan: Angel Investor, Founder of Chai and Capital and Board Chair of Forever Projects (+ many other things!)
Pam Stevenson: Head of People & Talent at OIF Ventures
Mark Dombkins: Founder of Forever Projects
Caleb Maru: Founder and CEO of Tech Safari
Dr Dan: Expedition & Wilderness Medicine
Mentions:
Elinipa: The incredible Tanzanian artist who has kindly allowed us to use her music across the series
Leadership coach Ben Crowe: check out some of Mojo Crowe’s perspective resources here
Five Types of Wealth: reference to the wealth explored in today’s episode, Mental Wealth
To try at home:
Five-minute Ikigai sketch: list 3–5 bullets under each circle (love / good at / world needs / paid for)
Ritualise space: commit to 10 minutes of journaling each morning for one week
Micro-service today: do one small thing for someone else; notice how it shifts your sense of “why”
If someone in your network would love these conversations, please share along. Help us create Ripple Effects.
This series is brought to you by Forever Projects, hosted by Soph Dicker, from the podcast So Invested - smart and unfiltered chats about money, business and building a life you are So Invested in.
Inspired to join Forever Projects next Tanzania Immersion Trip in July 2026? Find out more and register your interest here.
A decade ago, Mark Dombkins and his wife Anna moved to Tanzania with their family, driven by a desire to adopt. During the process, they was confronted with a hard reality - stories of women having to seperate from their babies because of circumstances outside their control, such as the inability to lactate, illness or poverty.
Mark and Anna found themselves asking a critical question:“What would have needed to change in our kids’ biological mothers’ stories so that abandonment and malnourishment could have been avoided in the first place?”
That question became the foundation for Forever Projects: a non-profit dedicated to helping women in Tanzania break the cycle of poverty by creating sustainable income opportunities.
Fast forward to July 2025. Mark had a new vision: to bring together a group of Australian founders and venture capital operators, to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and witness firsthand how empowering women to generate income doesn’t just change individual lives - it transforms entire communities.
This is the introductory episode of an eight-part documentary-style mini-series. It takes you behind the scenes of a two-week immersion in Tanzania - from summiting the world’s highest free-standing peak to spending time on the ground with the Forever Projects team.
The goal of this series? To document the raw and reflective moments that occur when you step away from our day-to-day realities and the noise that comes with it, to gain new perspectives that we can implement in our own contexts. Each episode will challenge you to stop, to reflect and ask where more perspective could fit into your routine.
What to expect from each episode:
- Tangible frameworks and actionable insights
- Advice and reflections from founders with lived experience
- Curated prompts to inspire reflection and growth
Who this series is for:
Founders, operators, career changers or climbers, or anyone seeking fresh perspective. Whether you’re passionate about self-development, social impact, or women’s empowerment - this series is for you.
Mentions:
Forever Projects - to learn more about the incredible work that the team are doing on the ground in Tanzania, please visit the website here
Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom - a framework we explore throughout the series. I’d highly recommend you add this to your reading list.If someone in your network would love these conversations, please share along. Help us create Ripple Effects.
This series is brought to you by Forever Projects, hosted by Soph Dicker, from the podcast So Invested - smart and unfiltered chats about money, business and building a life you are So Invested in.
Inspired to join Forever Projects next Tanzania Immersion Trip in July 2026? Find out more and register your interest here.
