Interview #10 and we're ending our St. Patrick's Day series on the other side of the world, in Sydney.

Shaun Henry is the co-founder of Floats, bootstrapped from Australia after a decade in tech recruitment and a leap of faith. A Tyrone man through and through, Shaun has built his life and his company as far from home as you can get and he wouldn't have it any other way.

This is our final interview before the big one. Our St. Patrick's Day newsletter drops tomorrow where we reveal the full results of our survey with over 120 Irish founders across the globe. You won't want to miss it.

My name is Shaun and I’m originally from Tyrone in Ireland, although these days I’m based in Sydney where I’m building my company, Floats.

Like a lot of founders, the journey into building a startup wasn’t something I mapped out early on. It was more the result of spending years in an industry and gradually seeing the same problems appear again and again.

I started my career in recruitment and spent about ten years working in the industry, mostly focused on the tech sector. Recruitment is one of those jobs where you learn a lot about people and businesses very quickly. You’re constantly speaking to founders, hiring managers and candidates, which gives you a front-row seat to how companies actually grow.

After a decade in recruitment I took a short stint working in tech sales at Dynatrace. That experience gave me a different perspective seeing how technology companies scale, how software is sold, and how much better tools can change the way people work.

Not long after that I started my own recruitment agency, Cloud Recruit.

Running an agency changes your perspective again. When you’re on your own you suddenly see the industry from the inside out, the parts that work well and the parts that feel stuck in the past. It was during that time that the early ideas behind Floats started to form.

But the story of how I ended up building a company in Australia actually starts much earlier.

During my final year of university I travelled to Australia to visit my sisters who were already living there. It was meant to be a short trip before going back to Ireland to finish the last few months of my degree.

I liked it so much that they practically had to push me onto the plane to go back and finish university.

A few months later I moved to Sydney.

Moving across the world at that age changes you in ways you don’t really realise at the time. Suddenly you’re building a life far from where you grew up. Your network starts from zero and you have to figure things out for yourself.

But it also gives you a certain confidence. When you’ve already moved across the world once, taking other risks later on like starting a company feels a little less intimidating.

I’d describe myself as optimistic but realistic.

Floats is currently being bootstrapped, which means the journey can feel slower than the outside world might expect. When you don’t have large teams or huge funding rounds, progress is steady rather than explosive.

But bootstrapping also forces discipline. You focus on building something genuinely useful because you have to. Every improvement matters. Every customer matters.

One interesting dynamic right now is the pace at which AI is evolving. The speed of progress is incredible, and in some ways it can feel intimidating when you’re building a small company. At the same time, that same technology is also creating opportunities. Advanced AI tools allow small teams to build things that previously would have required much bigger resources.

For a bootstrapped company, that can actually level the playing field.

The biggest challenge at the moment isn’t necessarily the product or the technology. It’s simply the patience required when you’re building something properly without external funding.

There are moments where you’d like things to move faster.

But there’s also something satisfying about building something slowly and deliberately. Every milestone feels earned.

Looking back, the journey from Tyrone to Sydney probably shaped how I approach building a company more than anything else.

Growing up in a small place and then finding yourself building something on the other side of the world gives you perspective.

You learn to adapt. You take risks. And you figure things out as you go.

Which, when you think about it, is basically what building a startup is anyway

Being Irish abroad helps more than people might realise.

Irish people tend to be naturally curious and comfortable talking to strangers. When you’re building a business, that turns out to be incredibly valuable. Most of the work is simply conversations; talking to customers, asking questions, understanding problems and building relationships.

There’s also a strong Irish network wherever you go. Whether it’s Sydney, London or New York, there’s usually another Irish person somewhere nearby building something, investing in something or just willing to give you advice.

That sense of community travels well.

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