A Google Engineer Turned Sydney Founder

When Tomasz Mikolajewski walked into Fishburners Sydney in January, he had already made the boldest decision of his career. After thirteen years at Google—leading teams of engineers and shaping products used by billions—he quit on New Year’s Eve to chase a dream that terrified him: launching his own AI startup from scratch.

“I got a little bit tired working at big tech for this long,” Tomasz admits.

“The Google I joined was scrappy; we shipped in a week. What takes a week in a startup took half a year there.”

The turning point came with the AI revolution. While large companies move slowly to protect billion-user platforms, startups can experiment, iterate, and ship overnight—a freedom Tomasz craved.

From Memolemon to a True Calling

His first idea was Memolemon—an app designed to replace TikTok doom-scrolling with bite-sized, AI-generated lessons. After three months of coding, it was rejected by the App Store. But that setback gave him clarity.

“I don’t use TikTok. I’m not an educator. I had zero unfair advantage.”

He pivoted quickly, determined to build something rooted in his real strengths: software engineering and human-computer interaction. That focus became Poppable—a voice-first, mobile-first, no-code app builder that lets anyone describe an app aloud and watch it build itself.

With thirty years of coding experience (he started programming at age eight), Tomasz had finally found his true lane.

Building in Public: The Power of Transparency

Instead of going stealth, Tomasz shared a short demo video on LinkedIn announcing he was “working on native voice + AI.”

The post went viral—200,000 views and 800 signups before the product was even halfway ready.

“Building in public creates demand before there’s even a product.

For Memolemon, I had seventy signups; for Poppable, eight hundred—with zero ad spend.”

His story quickly caught attention within the Fishburners startup community, where founders are encouraged to ship fast, share openly, and grow together.

Standing Out in a Crowded No-Code Space

The no-code and AI development market is competitive—Lovable just passed $100M ARR, and platforms like Replit and Bloom are fighting for the same creators.

“Everyone can rent the same LLM. Differentiation is brand, focus, and execution speed.”

Tomasz’s focus is radical simplicity: no buttons, no deployment, no API keys—just speak, preview, and publish.

Poppable’s edge lies in its real-time voice parsing and a rendering engine tuned specifically for mobile screens under 390px wide.

Brenton from Lovable builds an app using text prompts, while Tomasz creates the same app purely by speaking into Poppable at Tech Central.

The Side Project That Solved Bedtime

While fundraising for Poppable, Tomasz faced a more personal challenge: raising his two-and-a-half-year-old son trilingually—Polish, Chinese, and English—without adding screen time.

Using Alex Revill’s Problem Kit, he found a problem that was painful, personal, frequent, and sizable. The result was Lulululu, an audio-only multilingual storytelling app that calms toddlers with voice-based bedtime stories.

He hacked a prototype in a weekend, released it on TestFlight, and within days his son was requesting “the purple dragon story” every night.

“When he had a meltdown two nights ago, I hit play—and he went quiet in thirty seconds. That’s when I knew we’d solved a real problem.”

Lulululu launched on the iOS App Store last week as a free app, while Poppable continues to be Tomasz’s main mission.

Looking Ahead: Voice-First, Screen-Second

Tomasz believes the next billion app creators won’t type—they’ll talk.

“AI can handle complexity; humans should handle creativity.”

His roadmap for Poppable includes:

• One-tap publishing to the App Store

• Collaborative workspaces for teams

• A marketplace of voice-built app templates

His advice for aspiring Sydney founders and startup builders:

“Find a problem you personally have. If you don’t use your own product daily, how can you expect others to?”

From Google engineer to solo founder, Tomasz embodies the Fishburners philosophy—move fast, stay curious, and always stay human.

Watch this space—his mic is listening. 🎙️

Follow Tomasz’s journey:

👉 Try Poppable

👉 Connect with him on LinkedIn

📱 Try Lulululu for free on the App Store or Google Store

💡 Learn more about Fishburners’ startup community for AI founders here.

Sip Ventures, the corporate venture studio of Asahi Beverages, has launched a new program to collaborate with startups and scaleups across Australia and New Zealand. The program offers up to $150,000 in equity-free funding and the opportunity to pilot your solution within one of Australia’s most respected beverage companies.

About Sip Ventures

Sip Ventures is Asahi Beverages’ innovation arm, built to identify and develop the next generation of commercial opportunities for the business. Over the past three and a half years, the Sip Ventures team has launched projects spanning social connection tools for Gen Z, commercial reuse of internal waste streams, and consumer hardware innovation.

Now, Sip Ventures is opening its doors to external collaboration, inviting proven startups and scaleups to bring innovation into Asahi Beverages' network and help shape how consumers experience beverages across Australia and New Zealand.

The Opportunity

Sip Ventures is seeking businesses that enhance how Asahi Beverages’ products are enjoyed, whether at home, in retail, at venues, or digitally.

Successful applicants will enter a 12–20 week commercial pilot with Asahi Beverages, supported by up to $150,000 in non-dilutive funding (a mix of cash and in-kind support). Each collaboration will be customised, designed to integrate directly into Asahi Beverages' brands, customers, and operations.

This is not an accelerator or a training program. It’s a direct path to commercial validation with one of the largest beverage networks in the region.

Focus Areas

Sip Ventures is open to a broad range of technologies and solutions that improve how Asahi Beverages products are experienced, including but not limited to:

At Home

• Smart home or entertainment integration

• Biometric insights and personalisation

• Subscription or delivery innovation
  
  
  

At Retail

• Frictionless checkout and payments

• Circular packaging or smart labelling

• Loyalty, rewards, or retail media
  
  
  

At Venues & Events

• Predictive or real-time monitoring (e.g. staffing, keg tracking)

• Dynamic menus, promotions, and gamified experiences

• Hospitality resourcing, retention, and training
  
  
  

Digital

• Payments, rewards, and personalisation platforms

• Data, analytics, and retargeting technology

• Collaboration or engagement tools
  
  
  

What Sip Ventures Isn’t Looking For

For this round, Sip Ventures is not seeking:

• Food or beverage product innovation

• Internal operations solutions (warehousing, logistics, or supply chain tools)
  
  
  

What You’ll Gain

• Up to $150,000 in equity-free funding per selected business

• Direct access to Asahi Beverages’ network, including pilot opportunities across brands and channels

• A co-creation partnership model designed to empower, not overrun, founders
  
  
  

Key Dates

• Applications close: October 31, 2025
  
  

• Assessment: Rolling basis through November 2025
  
  

• Final selections: December 2025
  
  

• Pilots commence: First half of 2026
  
  
  

How to Apply

Submissions are now open via sipventures.com.au.

Startups and scaleups with traction and in-market validation are encouraged to apply early, as applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

When Yunmie Kim first stepped into Fishburners, she had no idea that moment would bring her to tears. But as she looked around at the community of like-minded founders, she realised something profound—she wasn’t alone. That realisation marked the turning point in her entrepreneurial journey. It was more than just a workspace; it was a place where she found encouragement, support, and the reassurance that she was not the only one taking risks to build something meaningful.

The emotional moment stayed with her, reinforcing her decision to take the leap into full-time entrepreneurship. For Yunmie, StoryTribe wasn’t just an idea—it was the culmination of years of passion for drawing and UX design. The platform was something she had envisioned as a way to bridge the gap between creativity and functionality, making storytelling more accessible to all. But even with a clear vision, making it a reality came with its own set of challenges.

As she immersed herself in the Fishburners community, she started forming connections with other founders who shared similar struggles. They exchanged advice, discussed funding options, and brainstormed solutions to common startup hurdles. This network of support gave her the confidence to push forward, even when obstacles seemed insurmountable. Looking back, Yunmie sees that moment as the true beginning of her startup journey—one that would shape the path of StoryTribe in ways she hadn’t imagined.

FROM DOODLES TO A DIGITAL REVOLUTION

For Yunmie, drawing wasn’t just a hobby—it was a way of life. From her teenage years spent creating comics and publishing webtoons to her career in UX design, visual storytelling had always been at the core of everything she did. She saw the world through illustrations, often translating complex ideas into simple sketches that resonated with people far beyond the tech industry. But the idea for StoryTribe didn’t come in a single aha moment; it was the natural evolution of years of experience, trial, and discovery.

“I didn’t wake up one day thinking, ‘I’m going to merge drawing and UX design into a platform,’” Yunmie shared. “It just happened naturally. I used drawing as a way to explain concepts in meetings, and I saw firsthand how much more effective it was. Over time, I realised that there was no dedicated tool for UX storyboarding, and that’s when the idea started taking shape.”

As she refined the concept, Yunmie found herself reflecting on the various ways people interacted with visual storytelling across different fields. Educators, marketers, and content creators all relied on imagery to communicate ideas, yet no comprehensive tool existed to streamline the process. This realisation deepened her commitment to building StoryTribe, not just as a UX tool, but as a universal platform for visual collaboration. With that vision in mind, she began laying the groundwork for what would become a groundbreaking approach to digital storytelling.

Taking the Leap: Leaving a Stable Job for the Unknown

Building StoryTribe while working full-time was challenging, but quitting her job entirely? That was terrifying.

“It wasn’t just about leaving a stable income; there were visa concerns, financial worries, and self-doubt,” she admitted. “But the real push came when my co-founder, the tech lead, left the company. Suddenly, I had a product but no one to build it. I had to make a choice—find another developer who would work on equity alone or raise funds to hire a team. And to raise funds, I needed to go all in.”

That’s when Fishburners entered the picture. “Until the day I walked into Fishburners, I didn’t know a single person in the startup world. I felt like I was stepping into an alleyway no one else had walked before. But then I saw people who were on the same journey—some playing pool, others deep in conversation about their startups. That’s when I realised: I’m not alone.”

The Power of Building in Public

One of the biggest catalysts for StoryTribe’s success was its transparency. Instead of keeping the idea under wraps, Yunmie built it in public, sharing every step of the process on social media.

“Even before we launched, we had 50,000 people on our waitlist,” she explained. “By posting updates, early sketches, and sneak peeks, we created demand before there was even a product.”

This strategy paid off massively, leading to a viral launch that brought in 70,000 users in just a few months—without spending a single dollar on marketing.

For other founders hesitant to share their ideas openly, Yunmie’s advice is simple: If your execution is strong, transparency will only help you.

Fundraising as a Solo, Female Founder

Despite StoryTribe’s rapid growth, raising capital was an uphill battle.

“I pitched to 30 investors, and only two were women. Every rejection made me question myself. Eventually, someone told me, ‘You’re struggling because you’re a solo founder, a female founder, and a first-time founder. Investors don’t like that.’”

At first, those words stung. But then she met another solo female founder who had raised over $2 million. Her secret? Relationship-building.

“She spent a year cultivating relationships with investors, sending them updates, and showing them her progress. So by the time she was ready to raise, they were already interested.”

Inspired by this approach, Yunmie decided to focus on making StoryTribe self-sustaining rather than chasing funding immediately. Ironically, once she made that mindset shift, the funding came.

“The moment one investor joined, suddenly everyone else wanted in,” she laughed. “That’s just how it works sometimes.”

Storytelling in the Age of AI

With AI-generated content flooding the internet, where does human creativity fit in?

“AI isn’t replacing storytelling—it’s enhancing it,” Yunmie explained. “But AI will never fully understand your vision. Right now, if you prompt an AI tool to create an image, it guesses based on global data, often diluting unique ideas. That’s why StoryTribe is about collaborating with AI, not just letting it take over.”

Her vision? A world where humans and AI create together, with AI assisting in execution but leaving the creative control in human hands.

What’s Next for StoryTribe?

With over 150,000 users (when we did the interview but now they have 300,000 users) and counting, StoryTribe is just getting started. The next big release? A storyboard-sharing feature that allows users to preview and showcase their work more easily.

“We’re also working on custom character styles, so users can bring their unique artistic flair into their storyboards,” Yunmie hinted.

Final Thoughts

From a solo founder navigating uncertainty to a startup with a global audience, Yunmie Kim’s journey is a testament to the power of perseverance, community, and staying true to your vision.

Her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? “Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Build in public, trust your instincts, and surround yourself with people who believe in you. The dots will connect—just keep going.”

Want to follow StoryTribe’s journey? Check them out here!