Oversubscribed with Brendan Hill Cracking AI Growth & Retention: How Instant & Relume scaled from $0 to $10m
With Sally Yu, Daniel James Slater
About Liam Millward
Liam Millward is co-founder and chief executive of Instant, which sells AI-driven email and SMS retention marketing to e-commerce brands. Started with William Gao as a one-click checkout product, Instant moved into audience building and AI marketing and now works with more than 2,000 brands from offices in Sydney and New York.
The company raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round led by Blackbird and, in 2025, an $18 million Series A led by Hummingbird Ventures. Before Instant he built a digital travel magazine to 50,000 monthly readers and ran an online store whose checkout problems led to the idea for the business.
On Day One he has appeared on Oversubscribed with Brendan Hill and In The Blink Of AI with Georgie Healy, discussing growth, retention and raising early.
- Talks about
- AI, Founder Journey, Growth & Scaling, Leadership, Startup Lessons
In conversation.
3 episodes
Start hereWhat It Takes to Build a $100M AI Company at 17His only solo interview: covers Instant's AI marketing product, raising early and the move into New York.
Go straight to the good bits.
Key moments from Cracking AI Growth & Retention: How Instant & Relume scaled from $0 to $10m.
- 3:15Slater's Journey with Relume: From Agency to AI
- 10:26Liam's Evolution with Instant: AI-Powered Marketing
- 15:02The Importance of Distribution in Startup Growth
- 19:16Community Engagement and Innovative Marketing Strategies
- 28:48Community Building Through Events
- 32:11The Shift in Growth Metrics
- 35:27The Importance of Product-Led Growth
- 42:12Understanding and Reducing Churn
- 52:29Retention Strategies in High-Growth Companies
- 56:16Transitioning to AI-Driven Products
The path so far.
- Now
Co-founder & CEO · Instant
- Earlier · Startup
Founder · Own e-commerce store
- Earlier · Startup
Founder (digital travel magazine, 50,000+ monthly readers) · Navigate Australia
Sources: ten13.vc
Instant on Day One
Instant is a retention marketing platform for e-commerce brands. It uses AI to write and send email and SMS flows and campaigns, time messages to when each shopper…
1 person · 3 episodes
Across the network.
Spot something wrong? Suggest a correctionUpdated 29 October 2026
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