Rob Neely, founder of Securely, joins Sunny Ray to trace a five decade entrepreneurial journey that began with a 30 dollar loan from his parents at age 15 to buy and resell surfboards in Melbourne. Neely recounts building teenage discos and massive roller skating rinks in his twenties, owning some of Australia's largest nightclubs, then losing millions on a newspaper he bought from Rupert Murdoch. A missed patent on mobile betting tips taught him the cost of cheap advice. He later built a horse feed brand called Weightlifter from his farm into a million dollar a month business, then took an animal health company global out of Kansas City. That path led to Securely, a startup that began as an escrow app for tradespeople, pivoted during COVID into marketplace protection, and evolved into a patented bank verified social media identity solution now valued at roughly 2.7 billion dollars as governments worldwide push to verify users and protect minors online.
From a 30 dollar surfboard hustle to a 2.7 billion dollar identity patent, Rob Neely's wild pivot filled entrepreneurial journey.
Can you tell us what Securely does?
Securely lets banks verify your social media profile using the identity data they already hold, like passports and driver's licenses, because the big platforms have no financial incentive to verify users. We also built a solution for dating platforms to fight catfishing. Our patents give the company an intrinsic value of about 2.7 billion dollars, and governments are now mandating under 16 year olds cannot be on social media.
Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Take us into the story of the 30 dollars.
I was born in 1960 and grew up around my parents' takeaway food stores and restaurants in Melbourne. At 15 I saw an opportunity to buy cheap surfboards in winter, clean them up, and resell them. I borrowed 30 dollars from my mom and dad, sold that first board for 60, and kept reinvesting. By 18 I had enough to buy my first house before university.
Your first ventures were in entertainment and publishing. What were you doing and what did you learn?
After university I worked in hospitality and nightclubs, then started running teenage discos in public halls using posters at bus stops since there was no social media. I later took that concept into large roller skating rinks, drawing 3500 kids on opening night. By 25 I owned three rinks and several major nightclubs before selling out and semi-retiring.
What happened with the newspaper you bought from Rupert Murdoch?
I bought the newspaper and lost an enormous amount of money, but it taught me a huge lesson. I wanted to patent texting betting tips to subscribers, but the IP attorney I used couldn't understand the concept and I never got the patent. That opportunity cost me potentially hundreds of millions. Since then I've only ever used the best advisors I can afford, because cheap advice is the most expensive advice.
How did the horse feed business, Weightlifter, take off?
On our farm we mixed our own horse feed recipe and people started asking what we were feeding our horses because they looked so good. Word spread, we branded it Weightlifter, and demand grew so fast people left money under the door to grab bags. Within two years we had a factory and were doing a million dollars a month, later expanding into repurposed human pharmaceutical technologies for animal health out of Kansas City.
How did Securely come about and pivot into what it is today?
We started Securely in 2020 to solve contractors and homeowners ripping each other off, building an escrow style app so payment sits in the middle until the job is done. During COVID, contractors' wives started using it to buy on Facebook Marketplace, so we built an app for that. A major Australian bank noticed us, and that meeting revealed the identity verification gap that became Securely's core patented solution.
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