He convinced one of Australia's largest VCs to back him and his co-founder Hardy on a single trust exercise — give us a year, we'll either come back with a product in market or come back honest about not finding one. They spent 6-7 months in "the void" before landing on Marloo.
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Shakeel and Hardy had both come out of consulting and corporate strategy. They'd agreed on the principles of how they wanted to build long before they agreed on what to build. They pitched one of Australia's largest VCs on a trust exercise: a year of paid investigation, with the explicit option of returning empty-handed.
What they did with that year: built and discarded frameworks across vertical B2B AI SaaS, including home services (roofing, plumbing, electrical) and an SMB succession marketplace. The lesson Shakeel keeps coming back to is that frameworks don't find markets — 800 conversations with financial advisors did.