Hey Friend, 

 

Last Thursday afternoon, I was sitting at my computer and saw an email come through with the subject line: 

 

 

I opened up the email. 

 

And I couldn’t believe what I was reading. As of the 28th of May, 2026 – Dashdot had entered into voluntary liquidation.  

 

Meaning – their business was no longer viable, and they were handing it over to liquidators to close it down and sell the assets. 

 

Now, this shocked me because Dashdot had been such a successful Australian Buyers Agent – which is a type of real estate business that sources investment properties for their clients.

 

I’d even interviewed the co-founder and CEO Goose McGrath back on Episode #28 of the podcast. I’ve referred friends, family and clients to use Dashdot’s services. And for the most part, they had great experiences working with them.  

 

So I was curious, how could this have happened?

 

Well, Goose McGrath wrote an insightful and heartfelt letter detailing the series of unfortunate events that lead to their downfall. 

 

And if you’re someone who wants to learn more about business, investing, market cycles and what can go wrong – then I highly recommend reading this letter and imprinting these lessons in your memory.  

 

Now, 

 

Goose pointed out in the letter that one of the most important metrics that linked to Dashdot’s success was the ‘consumer confidence index’ – which measures how optimistic or pessimistic Australian’s feel towards their personal finances and the economic outlook. 

 

Which makes sense, 

 

Because when you feel good about your financial situation and your prosperity moving forwards – you tend to spend more and want to invest. 

 

Whereas, when you feel down about your current situation and the outlook, you tend to hold onto your money, cut expenses and become overly cautious with investing. 

 

Now, Goose pointed out there were three external forces that compounded upon one another leading to the perfect storm:

a) The borrowing capacity for buyers and investors were tightened by APRA (Australian Prudential Regulation Authority)

 

b) The Reserve Bank raised interest rates to deal with high inflation

 

c) The oil crisis caused fuel prices to soar, worsening the cost of living crisis in Australia, and making consumers even more fearful

And then there was,

a) The proposed policy changes to Capital Gains Tax and negative gearing reduced the attractiveness of property investing.

 

b) And as a result, the banks changed their lending calculations to not include the previous tax benefits of negative gearing, which meant borrowing capacity dropped by 20% or more overnight.

 

c) These headwinds for the property industry put investors in a state of fear and paralysis and led to less enquiries to Dashdot.

And to make matters even worse,

3) Meta’s advertising platform broke their core acquisition engine 

a) Meta’s advertising platform (which Dashdot used to acquire clients) underwent significant changes.

 

b) And as a result, the cost to acquire a new client through Meta advertising doubled.

 

c) And during the same period, Dashdot’s revenue from Meta’s advertising platform halved.

So, as a result of this series of unfortunate events, all the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up creating the perfect storm.

 

 

But this cost them dearly.

 

They tried to raise equity in March to restructure their balance sheet, but the market conditions had deteriorated so much that investors didn’t want to participate. 

 

So they did what they could to reduce expenses. They made 40 of their employees redundant. But even these drastic measures to cut their costs wasn’t enough to save them. 

 

I’ve seen so many people across social media rip into Goose and Dashdot for their failure. And it seems people always come out of the woodworks to add salt to the wounds of people who have reached a rock-bottom moment.  

 

But where were these arm-chair critics when Dashdot was one of the fastest growing companies in Australia?

 

It’s a sad occurrence in human behaviour. 

 

People love to enjoy the failure of others more so than the success of others. 

 

And what can be hard to appreciate, is that the series of unfortunate events that unfolded for Dashdot could happen to any business, organisation, family or individual. 

 

And it’s likely that at some point in your life, you will come face to face with your own set of unfortunate events – where the holes in the Swiss cheese all line up creating the perfect storm.  

 

Now, 

 

The silver lining for Goose, Dashdot and all the people that have been affected – is that failure teaches you more than success ever will. 

 

And within every failure, is the seed of future success in order to the magnitude of the failure. 

 

But it’s our individual responsibility to take ownership for our decisions and to harness the wisdom from our mistakes. 

 

And he had previously bought an investment property through them, and had a great experience.

 

So he was working with their team to go again. And he had already put down another $16,000.

 

But with the news of Dashdot going into voluntary liquidation, his money is now likely gone.  

 

So understandably, he felt pretty upset and angry. And to make matters worse, he had told someone close to him about Dashdot. And they also put down $20,000 to start the process of sourcing an investment property. 

 

So he felt like Dashdot had let him down. And he felt like he’d let someone close to him down by referring them to Dashdot. 

 

And he felt embarrassed to tell anyone in case they said “I told you so”. 

 

I really felt for him. 

 

And I explained that business and investing will teach us harsh lessons from time to time. 

 

It happened to me in the stock market. 

 

I lost over $40,000 in real money in my early years investing. 

 

One of the companies I was a shareholder in, committed outright fraud by lying about their numbers to the public. And when the scandal became public, the company stopped trading, and all the money I had invested was gone. 

 

It sucked.

 

So I knew how my footy mate felt. 

 

But I told him, you can’t control what’s transpired here. 

 

 

And, eff what anyone else thinks! 

 

Because you had the courage to invest. And unfortunately, investing doesn’t always go your way. But this will become a valuable lesson. 

 

And hard times build character and resilience. If investing and business were easy, then we’d all be rich and wildly successful!  

 

The pain you’re feeling will take some time to get over, but don’t let this stop you in the long run. Because this is merely a blip on the radar in the big scheme of things.

 

As billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio mentioned in his book ‘Principles’:

 

PAIN + REFLECTION = PROGRESS 

 

There are people who are in pain right now, and as much as it sucks to experience pain, it can become a powerful tool for your future success.

 

And it’s a reminder for us all,

 

That life, business and investing is cyclical. 

 

Good times don’t last forever. And the same is true for bad times. It’s wise to prepare in the good times, so that you can survive and profit during the bad times. 

 

If you know someone who’s been affected by the collapse of Dashdot or anyone else going through a hard time in life, business or investing – please share newsletter with with them

 

Have a great day,