PubCam is building the data layer nightlife venues didn’t know they needed
Where better nights out meet better business
The genesis of PubCam is disarmingly relatable.
Jack White, one of three co-founders, was in the shower preparing for a night out in Wollongong when a familiar frustration struck: not knowing the vibe of a venue before committing to the queue.
“I was like, oh my God, imagine if I could see what the club was like right now,” White recalls. “Ran out of the shower, wrote it down, jumped back in ... went out, had a good night”.
The problem was simple and persistent. Nightlife information was static, promotional and often misleading.
Today, PubCam has evolved far beyond that initial spark. It operates as a dual-sided platform, offering patrons a consumer app with real-time livestreams, wait times and event transparency, while serving venue operators as a business intelligence tool. On the B2B side, it delivers AI-driven analytics for occupancy tracking, rostering and revenue optimisation.
It is a long way from an idea half-formed idea in the shower, but also a measure of how deliberately the founders have let the product grow to meet a real market need.
Executing that idea has defied the typical tech-founder stereotype. White and his co-founders, Tully Myers and Dakota Holford-Southon, financed their early ambitions through hard labour. All three hold other jobs, but admit to thinking and talking about PubCam relentlessly.
“The schedule is pretty cooked,” White says. He and Myers work at a Sydney scaffolding business, spending evenings and weekends building the platform.
Another key figure sits just outside the usual startup mould. White’s younger brother Harry, now 17, is the company’s chief technology officer. He is finishing his final year of school in the NSW Central West before joining full time.
“He just lives and breathes coding,” Jack says, crediting him with building and testing multiple applications.
Before PubCam gained even modest traction, the team struggled to get venues through the door at all. “We went and spoke to Mr Crown, before we went and got into sales, and they basically just said no,” White explains.
The rejection exposed a deeper structural problem. “We had to talk to them. No venues means no users, no nothing,” Myers said.
Rather than retreat, the founders decided to change themselves. “We realised we needed to learn sales, so we went and got a job in door to door sales in Sydney for six months. Grinded that out.”
The experience was punishing. “That was a nightmare,” White admitted. But it worked. “We became salesman of the month multiple times.”
When they returned to Wollongong and approached venues again, the response was markedly different. “Those guys were actually the first ones to pay us,” White says. Momentum followed.
Gatecrashing the ecosystem
Their entry into iAccelerate, the University of Wollongong’s business incubator, was as unconventional as their journey so far.
Driving past the Innovation Campus in North Wollongong in their work trucks, they decided to stop and knock on the door. “We just parked the car, jumped out... we all had all the scaffold gear on the back... stuff this, we’re going in,” White says.
They pitched their idea and had an office at the Squires Way building within a week.
The incubator has provided more than desk space. Technical support, peer learning and informal mentorship have helped the team work through complex challenges.
“We went in with the idea that we’re just going to be a massive sponge and just absorb everybody around us, listen to everyone and see what they have to say. It might be a good idea, might be a bad idea,” Myers said. “But I think from doing that, we’ve gained a lot more of an idea on what we’re doing.”
The environment has also challenged the team. On their first day in the building, iAccelerate’s program and community manager John Kerr was super-direct, White said: “He said, ‘Do you have a pitch deck?’... ‘I’ll get you to present it in front of 50 people in five minutes.’
“I just spitball in front of a bunch of people. It was great, I love that stuff - it was a bit terrifying though.”
From livestreaming to business intelligence
While the consumer-facing app offers live feeds, event listings and wait times, PubCam’s long-term value lies in its shift toward B2B analytics.
During recent beta testing at the Illawarra Hotel, the team validated that “venue teams are hungry for data backed decisions, not guesswork”.
PubCam now positions itself as a unique “data and analytics platform for nightlife”. Using computer vision and AI, it provides real-time occupancy tracking, heat maps, average customer spend data, and AI-driven trend forecasting to assist with rostering.
The approach mirrors broader shifts across hospitality, where operators are increasingly turning to data to identify bottlenecks and improve efficiency. PubCam also allows venues to push notifications to users during quiet periods, effectively turning a slow night into something else with minimal cost.
High-fidelity testing ground
The team is finalising its dashboard and refining code to achieve 95 per cent accuracy in the low-light conditions typical of nightclubs.
The Illawarra serves as a high-fidelity testing ground for PubCam’s prototype. The startup has already integrated with a diverse network of local venues including: The Illawarra Hotel, Mr. Crown, Heyday, Humber, The Prince and Howling Wolf.
By July 2026, the company intends to have a fully operational prototype featuring four to six cameras per venue across Wollongong. But the dream doesn’t stop there, White said..
“We’re aiming to be a billion dollar company by 10 years. Ending up in at least 85% of venues Australia, 85% of venues in Europe, same as America.”
To support that ambition, the team is planning a strategic trip to San Francisco in July to meet venture capitalists and connect with the Bay Area founder community.
They admit from an idea in a shower mid-2024, to their impromptu iAccelerate introduction in August 2025, life has come at them fast.
“I never, ever would have thought we would get this far,” White admits. “But hey, something must be working.”
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