Hugh
Stephens
I push buttons on the computer
and it appears on the internet.
General Partner @ Galileo Ventures. Founder of Sked Social. Technically a recovering med student — fell into business, never found the exit, and now I refresh dashboards for sport.
Fell into business while studying medicine. Stayed for the buttons.
The short version: I was supposed to be a doctor. Then I started freelance consulting in risk and strategy “for beer money” during a medicine degree at Monash, and it quietly hardened into Dialogue Consulting — advising everyone from government departments to ASX-listed financial-services firms. The stethoscope never really stood a chance.
I bootstrapped Sked Social out of consulting cash into the world’s leading Instagram scheduling platform — 10,000+ brands, a team scattered across more timezones than is strictly reasonable, and (shockingly) profitable. No venture capital. No board decks. Just customers.
These days I’m a General Partner at Galileo Ventures, handing first cheques to founders most institutional funds think are “too early.” Which makes me a rare sort of VC: one who has actually run payroll. Forbes once put me on a 30 Under 30 list; I have a few papers in journals like The Lancet, mostly from back when I hadn’t mastered the word “no.”
A gloriously non-linear résumé
Galileo Ventures
2020 — NowPre-seed & seed VC backing emerging founders from their very first round — often the first cheque, before the data room exists. Fund I fully deployed across 25 companies from Melbourne, Sydney and San Francisco. Official title: “clanker in chief.”
Sked Social
2013 — NowBootstrapped Schedugram into the world’s leading Instagram scheduling platform. 10,000+ brands, a fully-remote team, profitable — and not a dollar of venture capital.
Angel portfolio
2017 — NowSeed & angel cheques where I can actually help — Audience Republic, Cake Equity, EarthAI and more.
SocialSitter
2012 — 201724/7 human social-media moderation for brands, governments and pharma — every post reviewed within 15 minutes.
Dialogue Consulting
2011 — 2017Specialist digital strategy, risk and analytics across AU, NZ and the USA. Built the brand on careful PR and measurable outcomes.
Mayo Clinic · Center for Social Media
2011 — 2017Advised on social strategy, tools and integration in healthcare. The medicine degree, quietly earning its keep.
Built & backed
Two companies I care about most: one I bootstrapped, one I use to back the next lot of founders.
Galileo Ventures
Co-founder & General Partner. We write the first cheque — two people and a thesis, before anyone else is brave enough. Fund I landed in the global top decile: 25 companies, 80% raising follow-on within a year, names like Relevance AI, Andromeda and Kite Magnetics doing the heavy lifting. A second, larger fund is in the works.
Visit Galileo Ventures ↗Sked Social
Founder. Started as a scrappy 2013 side-project called Schedugram; collected revenue in month two and never stopped. Grew into a profitable platform used by 10,000+ brands — from corner cafés to Disney, Red Bull and the BBC. All of it bootstrapped.
Visit Sked Social ↗Things I wrote down
The occasional long-form argument, plus academic papers from the medicine era — in journals considerably more serious than this website.
Is Australia’s golden goose really a battery hen?
A call-to-arms: Australia risks fumbling the AI revolution through timid, protectionist policy. Four concrete priorities — energy, data infrastructure, entrepreneurship and ASX reform — before the country falls behind.
“We need to decide where we are going to play and where we aren’t — and that needs to be aligned to our strengths.”Read the letter ↗
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Let’s chat
Got a startup, a wild idea, or just want to argue about the best synth of 1984? Email me — I actually reply. Or slide into the LinkedIn.