Justin Summersgill on AmazeApp, Debt and Starting Again in Brisbane

Justin Summersgill arrived at his own relaunch in early April wearing borrowed shoes and a crinkled shirt. Every dollar he had left had gone into a laptop and a $500 bill for the venue and catering. By the end of the evening, his pockets held just enough change to buy a single can of Coke. The event was the public reboot of Wolfpac, a private networking club he was attempting to rebuild in Brisbane after the collapse of his previous company left him financially and professionally exposed.

Building a business network requires convincing founders, executives, and sponsors to trade on your reputation. For Summersgill, that currency was severely depleted. Seven months earlier, AmazeApp, the private catering and chef-booking platform he founded and ran for four years, abruptly collapsed in Victoria. The venture left claims of unpaid work and a trail of unresolved debts in its wake. When we met him in the City Botanic Gardens, Summersgill was open about the commercial baggage he now carries as he tries to build a new venture based entirely on professional connections.

His career in hospitality had begun 14 years earlier in Tasmania. While completing an apprenticeship, he launched Infusion Private Dining, what he describes as the first private chef business to launch on the island. His inaugural booking came through a chance conversation at a bank branch, where a banker hired him to cater an anniversary dinner for just over $100. A move to Melbourne followed, then The Cheesecake Man, a dessert business he established during pandemic restrictions. That venture built him a sizable social media audience, which he promptly leveraged the week restrictions ended to launch AmazeApp.

Justin Summersgill.

In its early days, before the app, the model showed immediate financial promise. Operating without major overheads, Summersgill handled the cooking himself, yielding profit margins before his own wages upwards of 50 per cent. Scaling the operation, however, proved expensive. Over four years, AmazeApp handled more than 2,000 events, including a 260-guest charity event. To meet that demand, the platform brought on contract chefs at rates between $80 and $100 an hour. Those labour costs, paired with mounting overheads, steadily eroded working margins until the business possessed virtually no operational buffer.

The turning point came during the summer prior to the company's closure, when medical setbacks forced Summersgill away from work for roughly three months. Because cash flow depended heavily on his personal kitchen shifts, the business was forced to take on debt to remain operational. A nine-month scramble to service those liabilities followed. With cash severely constrained, AmazeApp booked five large functions, successfully executing four. When the company ran out of liquidity to stage the final event, Summersgill offered the client a refund within days or alternative catering. The dissatisfied customer aired the dispute online, triggering a severe backlash inside a bridal group that supplied about 80 per cent of AmazeApp’s customers. The business closed immediately.

The subsequent fallout soon entered the public domain. In February, the Courier in Ballarat published an investigation detailing claims from former chefs, waiting staff, and contractors who stated that agreements had been breached and invoices left unpaid. Summersgill disputed several elements of the reporting, but acknowledged the broader operational failure to the publication, conceding that "people got hurt and that is on me."

Part of that period involved maintaining public appearances at the expense of reality. During AmazeApp's four years, Summersgill promoted record-breaking months while residing in hostels. "I was showcasing a lifestyle that wasn't true," he says, acknowledging that personal gambling also did not help during that period. While maintaining that wagering was not the principal cause of the collapse, he concedes the damage: "It didn't help, I won't lie, but it wasn't the reason."

Resolving the financial aftermath has remained a slow, individual undertaking. Summersgill declined offers of help to place the corporate entity into formal liquidation. The company has since been deregistered, and he has chosen instead to shoulder the liabilities directly. From a modest personal income of approximately $1,800 a month, he currently directs $600—a third of his total earnings—into six active payment plans of $100 each. He hopes to increase those instalments from January, and has offered free events over the Christmas period for those affected by AmazeApp's demise.

The path to building Wolfpac proved equally turbulent. Summersgill initially launched a business community called Amaze Club roughly four weeks after the catering venture ceased trading, soon rebranding it to Wolfpac. The group grew to more than 100 participants before media coverage of AmazeApp surfaced, causing prospective interest to stall almost entirely. By New Year's Eve, he found himself effectively homeless, spending the early months of the year in an unfulfilling day job before being let go days before Easter.

The April relaunch in Brisbane marked a concerted effort to start fresh, yet past headlines continued to present commercial hurdles. When Wolfpac organised its first yacht networking function less than three months later, five prospective brand partners did not come on board the day prior, after hearing about the negative press, creating an immediate shortfall exceeding $6,000. The catering was saved only after a friend agreed to step in as a sponsor at a reduced $600 fee. A second yacht event held the following month fared considerably better, securing full commercial backing two weeks before the event.

Today, Wolfpac operates across Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney, reporting a roster of between 120 and 130 members. The business relies on three distinct revenue channels: recurring monthly memberships starting at $24.95, corporate brand sponsorships, and paid guest ticketing. Because each paid membership includes two complimentary passes alongside production costs like event photography, individual ticket sales never cover function expenses, leaving sponsorship and monthly fees to bridge the operational gap. Alongside the club, Summersgill has resumed private dining via privateplating.com and added commercial website design services.

The fundamental transition, however, is personal. "I've traded the chef jacket for a suit," Summersgill says, leaving partner venues to handle the kitchen whilst he orchestrates the guest list. For an entrepreneur who experienced the isolation of a public corporate failure, the platform is designed around mutual peer support. "I think business is a really lonely avenue," he reflects, pointing out that what fuels the project is not personal bravado, but the room itself: "It doesn't come from me. It's when I do an event and the people just light that fire."

Justin Summersgill.

Whether that goodwill can permanently outpace the financial consequences of AmazeApp remains an open question, but in Brisbane’s corporate circuit, Summersgill is banking heavily on staying in the room.

This article is based on Justin Summersgill's account in an interview with The Urbanite. We have not independently verified his statements about his businesses, finances, repayments or the timeline of events.

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