Lee Hardham is the founder and CEO of Broutz, a retail technology company he launched more than a decade ago. He previously built a corporate career in sales and business development at News Corp Australia, experience that shaped the problem he later set out to solve in retail discovery and in-store conversion.
At Broutz, Lee has taken the company from an initial marketplace concept through multiple pivots to the product set it offers today. His work now sits at the intersection of retail software, customer experience, and commerce infrastructure, with a clear focus on helping retailers turn online intent into store-level action.
Background
Lee began his career at News Corp Australia, where he rose through sales and business development roles into a divisional manager position overseeing retail key accounts and business development. Over roughly 13 years, he worked in a period when print media was being disrupted by search and online advertising, and that shift helped prompt his thinking about how consumers discover products and stores.
The idea that became Broutz emerged from that observation. Lee first imagined a marketplace that could predict what a customer might want before they searched, then show nearby stores carrying those products and alert staff when a shopper entered. He resigned from News Corp, spent his own savings on a prototype, and quickly learned that building a category-defining product required more than outsourcing and a compelling idea.
Broutz launched its marketplace in 2017, backed by media attention and early retailer interest. But the business ran into the familiar problem of two-sided marketplaces, it had too few stores and too little product depth to function at scale. During that period, Lee also put his house up for sale to help fund the company, a decision that reflected how close the business came to running out of room.
The company then pivoted from marketplace to software products built for retailers, beginning with a reserve-in-store button that could be embedded on retailer websites. From there, Broutz expanded into adjacent commerce functions and in-store capabilities. Lee’s career arc now reflects a move from corporate sales leader to founder, investor-funded operator, and long-term builder in retail software.
Core Expertise
Lee is known for retail technology, particularly software that connects digital browsing with physical store behaviour. His work has focused on reserve-in-store, buy-online-pick-up-in-store, on-demand delivery, store-finding, ship-from-store, appointments, and clienteling, all designed to help retailers convert online interest into measurable store activity.
A recurring theme in Lee’s approach is commercial realism. He has repeatedly emphasized product-market fit, the need to distinguish between perceived demand and actual demand, and the importance of building only what can be adopted by customers at scale. He also treats roadmap discipline as a practical requirement: customer feedback matters, but only when it supports products that can be sold broadly or financed by customers who are ready to buy.
Academia
The dossier provided for this biography did not include undergraduate education details for Lee.
The dossier provided for this biography did not include graduate, executive, or professional education details for Lee.
Key Perspectives that Lee Hardham Shares on the Podcast
Lee’s central view is that entrepreneurship is less about having an idea and more about solving a real problem well enough that customers will commit money, people, and operational attention to it. In the conversation, he was blunt that there is a difference between a perceived need for technology and an actual need, and he argued that many early-stage founders mistake interest for demand.
He also returned repeatedly to the importance of limits, both psychological and commercial. Lee described the value of working through self-imposed constraints, but he paired that with a practical framework: focus on the next essential task, build around strong advisors, and let real customer behaviour, not enthusiasm, determine the roadmap. For him, a business has to earn its way from concept to revenue.
A Quote from this Conversation with Lee Hardham
There’s a difference between a perceived need for a technology and an actual need.
