How Two Best Mates Turned a Side Hustle into a Business

Doing business for good.

This article is presented in partnership with Monash Business School. You can listen to the full podcast on Spotify, Apple Music, or right below.

If you’re journeying into the business world, the first things that may come to mind are multi-million-dollar for-profit companies, billionaires, and superyachts.

But starting a business can take any shape or form—whether conventional or unconventional, for-profit, or non-profit.

That's why we’ve teamed up with Monash Business School to bring you a special five-part podcast series called “What I Wish I Knew About Studying Business”.

In our fifth and final episode, we welcomed David Bookman to speak specifically about his experience starting a business in the disability sector while he was still studying at Monash.

Meet David.

David studied commerce at Monash Business School, majoring in Finance.

He started his organisation ‘Buttons’ along with his best friend Ryan who was also studying at Monash. It all started when they both volunteered with a disability sector non-profit after Year 12.

“It profoundly changed our lives. It showed us that doing good could be fun and you learn about yourself,” David said.

“We started to notice a lot of young people getting involved in the support workspace. It presented something new.”

‘Buttons’ connects people with a disability to young support workers, and after starting it during university as a side project, it has become a full-time gig for David and Ryan.

Finding purpose.

We asked David how he knew what he wanted to ‘do’. And like most young adults—it wasn’t straightforward.

“I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, so my guiding principle was doing something broad,” he said.

“It seemed like if I wanted to go down the general path, like a law or commerce field, Monash would be a great university to go and set myself up and give myself time to figure out what I wanted to do in a career.”

After changing course a few times, David got the swing of things and found that his commerce degree paid off later on.

“I’m in the start-up world, and a commerce degree gives you a really good awareness for what exists out there.

“Irrespective of the career choice I made, I felt like I had a good sense of competence behind me.”

Working with your best mate.

It can be a tricky thing to negotiate business and friendship.

Lucky for David and Ryan, theirs has turned out to be a positive business relationship.

“It’s a really beautiful thing, if done well,” David said about working together. “When we started, we were really cautious of the fact that this is something that could be dangerous, but we set really clear boundaries.

“There’s a personal fulfilment when I see him succeed, because I knew him from years ago—we went to high school together.”

Be sure to hear the rest of David's story and get all of his advice on our fifth episode of “What I Wish I Knew About Studying Business” on Spotify or Apple Music and check out more information about Monash here!