Marc Degli didn’t come from much. Raised by a single mum after his dad left before he was born, life early on was tough. Money was tight, and school wasn’t much easier. Marc is dyslexic and moved schools often during his teens, never really fitting in.
“I just couldn’t see the point of sitting in a classroom,” he says. “I felt like an academic failure, and there wasn’t anything for me in the school system.”
A week after finishing high school, he went straight to work. Days were spent at a startup, nights waiting tables six times a week, and weekends doing landscaping. It was a full-on schedule, but it gave him momentum – something he hadn’t felt in school.
He eventually landed a role at Dell, which gave him a foot in the door in tech. While working, he put himself through TAFE to study Leadership and Management and enrolled in a degree in Applied Cloud Technology at La Trobe. As travel and work commitments picked up, he made the call to step away from university and double down on gaining real-world experience.
Over time, Marc held roles across multiple tech companies, picking up a broad mix of experience in sales, product, and strategy. That led to the founding of Blackhawk Alert, a business he built from scratch and now sits on the board of.
Alongside Blackhawk, Marc quietly expanded his work — mentoring founders, advising startups, and investing in businesses he believes in. He holds equity in several ventures and has built a solid personal portfolio, proving that you really can make something from nothing.
Still, his proudest moment wasn’t financial. It was buying his mum a unit — a personal goal that meant more than any title or deal.
These days, Marc splits his time between building, advising, and creating. Under the name art_by_dmar, he produces artwork and exhibitions that explore identity, struggle, and creative freedom — a space where he can express parts of himself that don’t always fit into business.
“I’m not trying to be the loudest voice in the room,” he says. “But I do think if you’ve managed to build something from the ground up, you’ve got a responsibility to use it well — to create, to support others, and to keep moving forward.”
You can follow up with Marc Degli at https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcdi/
