Unlocking the Secrets of Strata Management

So much of the problem and so much of the solution actually lies in really foundational stuff that people aren't thinking of. It's actually about data verification. It's so much a data play. They have actually have a means of collecting that data and refreshing that data and verifying that data. Like this sounds really contradictory, but if I've gotten what I wanted much earlier, we wouldn't have had the business we had. There's a real value in slowness. You know, I've always like I read a lot of books and I love biographies and I'm interested in tech leaders and all this, but all this move fast and break stuff stuff. I just do not that hasn't been my experience.

Like we would have made

just such different decisions that I we wouldn't have uncovered some of the the absolute gems that we've uncover uncovered that were that were just through because we had no choice but but to go slow. Running a business can feel [music] lonely, especially when the decisions get heavy. Welcome to CEO Rispro by Sorb Jane. Practical insights [music] from the boardroom and the meditation cushion. I'm Sora. I've done 10,000 hours in three major parts of my life. I spent 10,000 hours being a CEO, 10,000 hours being [music] a board member, and 10,000 hours meditating. What we're going to do in each [music] episode is really unpack a real business challenge that a CEO is facing and see if we can work through it together.

Enjoy.

Hi.

Good day, guys. Welcome to another episode of CEO Whisperer. Today, I've got Chris from Taylor with us. Chris, do you want to tell us a bit about yourself?

Uh, where do I start? A bit about myself. So, I'm I'm sort of a real estate guy background. But for my sins, I sort of had a I had a expertise and a and a career in strata management. And then yeah, for the last I don't know 20 odd years I've been trying to extract myself from strata management and find myself just right back in the thick of it. Um about 10 years ago now 11 years ago now I left agency and I founded Vantage Strata with me and a couple of business partners. A couple of them have since exited but there's me and my current business partner that now own 50% each. Um, and yeah, Vantage is it'd be approaching 17,000 units under management, all in CRA almost exclusively.

Camber boy, I've moved out of the coupe now from Camber to Melbourne, funnily enough, and people think I've left the business, but no, I've just just had a change of scenery, but um, yes, still up to my neck in in Stratland at the moment.

Okay, awesome. So the way we run these sessions is we we have a problem that you're kind of is very top of mind right now and we kind of workshop it together. So what is something that's causing you grief right now?

Yeah. So I've got it's more greater than a labor of love. I very early on in my strata career I sort of had this idea that and I'm not the first to have it. Many many are called fewer chosen on this idea. I I had this real interest in getting at the behind the door services in strrada. So if anyone's any person listening to the podcast who's in strata will instantly know what I'm talking about and anyone who's not in strata will have absolutely you know no clue. But you know strata strata management or strata living more generally people living in apartment complexes or townhouse complexes. We got this sort of high concentration and high density of these people living together in these communities and the strata manager's role is to manage the common property but they just have this captive audience and all these people are consuming products and services and they've you know create these little micro communities but they're not no one has ever really tapped into how to service the needs of these micro economies.

So I very early on I really had an interest in in wanting to do that and and in fact it was more interesting to me than the strata management side. I always said one day and it's not proven to be true may may never be proven to be true but I always said one day a strata business will manage these things for free because there's so much opportunity to get at um selling services to the to the people that live and own in those units. So I've had this labor of love which eventually manifested into creating a new business adjacent to the strata business. It's a totally separate entity and organization um called Taylor Services and its sole purpose is to get at that behind on the front door opportunity.

And to be fair, you know, it's a bit weird to call it a labor of love now cuz we're probably three and a half four years into it. We're probably approaching 2 million bucks cash tipped into it. We've got I've got such high real now.

It's real. It's

real. Yeah.

It's it's a money it's a money hole though. It's not it's not a profitable thing and it's got you you can look down the path to see you know what it's journey to profit is. And it's a and it's a long expensive journey to get there. But, you know, it's it I've got such high conviction cuz the indicators are all there and if it and if it comes together the way that I think it could, it's it's really potentially explosive.

So, what are you trying to solve in the tailor space like what's what's top of mind now?

Um what what are we trying to solve from from the business or what's as in what's the problem that you're trying to solve right now?

What's the need? Like why does Taylor exist? you know, as in like what part of the business are you struggling with or want to kind of workshop together?

So the yeah, probably at a at a really basic level it's it's how to fund the thing, how to get access to funding,

um what the right path and what the right timing is to to sort of call on that capital.

Okay.

Actually, how to get it.

Yeah.

It's such a weird thing, S. got like I'm I invest in a few things. I don't put huge money in. I'm not I'm not loaded, but I'll you know people come to me and they pitch stuff. I'm like, "Yeah, that looks I'm good. 50 grand or 100 grand in that. I'm an easy sell too by the way."

Oh, you've invested in CU Health. I invested a lot.

I mean, um another thing that I'm pretty passionate about at the moment called Settle. Um I won't go into that, but yeah, I I have an interest in doing that stuff. And whenever people come to me and they say, "Oh, I'm raing money. Would you put some in or can you introduce me to people?" I'm really great at going and finding money for these people. Like I would have found more than I would have been directly involved in introducing to Patad who you had on the podcast directly involved in introducing him to about 1.5 million bucks. But when it comes to raising it for myself, I just don't really know where where to go or how to go about it.

I I don't feel like I've I feel like if I'm asking for it for myself or my own enterprise, I'm reluctant to go to the

friends, family, personal network.

Not so much how do I fund it, but why can I help others raid but I can't raise for myself?

Yeah.

Yeah,

it is a

it's a funny question. Yeah. So why can I raise for others or help others raise but not raise for me? Does that sound right?

Totally. Yeah.

So take us to the beginning. So you said you started off your career as in real estate. That was real estate sales, was it?

Well, I I mean I'm bit I'm bullshitting a bit there. I actually did start in strata management. It's funny thing with strata managers. anyone who's in strata sort of you know they kind of they're often embarrassed about it.

Yeah. It's not it's not the top of the property tree. So you know I started in strata and the guy that uh the company

as an actual strata manager

strata manager I didn't know what strata was. It was actually a carpenter.

I was doing my I was doing carpentry work and we had the um the contract me and my old man had the contract to do all the maintenance work for all the Maya stores and Grace Brother stores in our area. And one day we got a fax and it said, "We're nationalizing this thing. Thanks. You know, you don't have a job tomorrow." And I was like, "Shit, what am I?"

How old have you been at the time?

I was 20, early 20s. But I was taking the piss. Like, this was the this was the biggest [ __ ] job. It was like it was And it's a good thing cuz if I'd stayed like that, you know, it just it wasn't going to go it wasn't going to go anywhere good. And I was I was able No one knew, you know, no one knew who we were or what we were doing. They were all the store managers in retail. We were just these guys that would get around and greet stuff. You had to fix stuff. So, it was just it was sort of hiding in in plain sight stuff and it was a it was a piss tape.

So, one day I get this I'm confronted with this thing. I've lost you know you don't have a job anymore. Um I didn't really love what I was doing anyway, but I didn't know how how to pay the pay the bills. I was going to a music festival that weekend, Splender in the Grass, which in Byron Bay and I pulled the pin. I said, "I'm not going to go." And all and one of the guys that was on the trip who I'd never met um absolutely tore strips off me and they said, "You are coming to this festival. You've committed to us. We'll be there at driving to Queensland at like 9:00 that night." He said, "We're going to be there to pick you up." Oh [ __ ] I went to this music festival and the whole weekend he was this guy who started out really bristly was giving me a a pep talk.

You're a smart guy. What are you doing? You can you can you should look into something professional. Anyway, I got back from that trip a couple of days later with no money. This is the days when you buy the newspaper, the Wednesday newspaper and I fold the thing out like good old days pen out and so I'm circling all these things and one of them was strata manager. So I was just blindly throwing darts at the dart board

and going to interviews having no idea what it was. I got I went to an interview for a strata manager. I walked out of there and I had a phone call before I got to the car saying, "Oh, we loved you. You've got the job." It was a month before I knew what the hell it even was. I couldn't explain it to my friends. I was just

What did your dad do? Was he ready to retire or was he out job at the same time as well?

Dad's a car Dad is a He's a real carpenter. A real carpenter. I was a pretend carpenter. I was doing Yeah. maintenance work.

Dad's a carpenter. Yeah. And he was he found what everyone

Yeah. Yeah. He was he had the contract to do that. But yeah, it is doing another

And how many years ago was this that you went to that interview?

That must have been about 20 years ago.

So has the last 20 years of your life just been an accident just cuz that one that one lucky break.

And I tell you what's funny as well is the whole time when I first started cuz strata management is a really [ __ ] gig in many many respects. Am I going to swear? Is it totally? Yeah, [ __ ] it.

Oh, good. I wasn't going to go the the fbomb, but you started it. Yeah, strata management's a really tough gig because it's just pretty

grind. It's a real grind. And probably from, you know, from the moment I got in there with my girlfriend at the time, I still I remember saying

like I'd say this every few weeks and it was every couple of months. I'd be like, "Oh, I'm just going to get get this on my CV, you know, 3 months. Oh, maybe three months is next month. I'll get a good job in the public."

Were you working for a large firm at the time or a local camera? Uh it was a local CRA firm but they were they were large for 10,000 years.

Okay. Cam Camber units plan services. Cups.

Cups and are they still around?

No. So Cups was the is the place I worked for. Um Peter Ribbons was the owner of Cups. She was a great lady. My I think through my life I probably have maybe three or four mentors that I can pinpoint professional mentors that whether they knew they were or not. She was probably the first real professional mentor. She was great, but she um I went to work for for Cups. It was always a stepping stone. I was always just waiting to get enough time under my belt that I could get a job at the public service being a cam baron cuz I was cuz I'm probably I've got this lazy streak in me. I thought just go somewhere where you get paid, you know, an honest week's work for an honest week's pay for an honest day's work.

And then that company was bought by one of my other great mentors, Doug Omara, who owns Civium.

Yep.

Um that's that's another strata manager in

C. Yeah. Is a strata company, but they were real estate guys. He was a commercial real estate agent and he had commercial real estate sales and leasing. And he thought, probably not correctly, but it made sense on paper. He thought if he bought a commercial strata management rent roll that would be a feeder for sales and lease.

And I see you see that happen occasionally throughout the industry. People think they're going to buy strata. They're not interested in strata. It's going to be some feeder to what they really want to do which is sales.

But actually what it does it just ruins your brand.

It totally cuz no one likes your strata manager. That's exactly what happened with with Doug. But anyway he bought from Peter Ribbons just the commercial stuff. brought it in and I think so commercial commercial buildings was it

the commercial portion of her strata management book which was fairly small it was probably 10 10% of the whole portfolio he bought that and then um absorbed it into his business that it was going to be a feeder for all these other things he actually wanted to do but he I think what happened was he looked at and went this is a [ __ ] really good the fundamentals of this business are really good so he came back a couple of years later and said I'll buy the whole lot so when he bought the whole lot I came along with that business Now I was with a real estate.

How many years were you a strider manager then? By then I was a strider manager a couple of years or so.

Yeah.

Were you kind of good at it? Were you enjoying it?

I was good at it. It like I've got this weird thing where a lot of the things I'm good at I'm good at despite the fact that I'm I'm not disciplined enough and I probably shouldn't be. I sort of I sort of whatever I lack in being on top of things and good time management, I make up for by being personable and having good relationships with people and they get away with a lot more about they just like me. If someone likes you, they kind of like they turn a blind.

Don't worry about it. You know, next week it'll be fine.

So that got acquired by Doug.

Um it was Ray White at the time. They rebranded to Civian eventually. So I kind of went into this. Now, I was parachuting into this real estate world and I I had me and the Peter's son were going to buy into the business and we were going to start acquiring shares and that rug got pulled out from from under us when Doug came in and bought that lot. So, I was sort of sulking. I didn't want to do strata management anymore. But, if you want, I'll stick around. and I'll do like, you know, if you've got some other stuff that you're doing in in real estate that I can do, maybe that'll be a pathway into commercial sales or commercial agency.

And that's what happened. I stuck around and I I became a commercial sales and leasing agent and I loved it.

That was a deliberate choice to pursue.

That was a choice. Yeah. There's it was sort of there's pushpull forces like it was I was being pulled towards the agency stuff because it looked fun and interesting and it's a it's a deal doing kind of thing. I'm a real deal do like I get whatever that part of the brain that

yep

gets the endorphine from doing deals. I really like that that motivates me. So I was pulled toward that, but I was pushed away from strata. Like

I found people that enjoy deals, actually enjoy something a bit subtler.

They enjoy convincing people.

Maybe that's it.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's and that's why you're quite personable. But you actually enjoy convincing someone about your point of view.

Yeah. I think Well,

and that's actually what a deal is, right? You convince somebody to do what you want them to do.

Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

I think you might Yeah, you may have a point there. It's certainly It's just more It's just more enjoyable. And I, you know, like I got to be careful cuz I got a big strata business and I got a lot of people that work for me and and there was a time when I would say to people, well, what do you do? Oh, I'm I'm a real estate agent. Even when I got back into strata, yeah, a strata manager is a licensed real estate agent where we are. And it was this kind of like I didn't want to admit I was a strata manager. I've gone full circle. I am strata. I love strata. What if someone says what do you do?

Own it out.

[ __ ] strata manager. It's great. So, I got to be careful with my staff that they don't

think I'm just [ __ ] all over it. But the truth is, real estate is fun. Agency is fun. Most interactions you're having with people are positive.

You know, you're not we're not selling, you know, mortgages in possession. We're selling commercial property, professional customers. people are getting their first office or a big big

a big company's moving to the to the big office or someone you know like it's

it's generally a happy event

and you how long then before you went out on your own. So, I had this weird because I had the strata background and because I'm a deal doer by nature and because I had this position in this real estate business that also had a big strata business, they had a lot of, you know, that there were a lot of developers who I used to service their needs for for new developments. So, we'd win the strata management of it. So, I hung on to that. the and the guys that owned the business were like, "Well, the strata buildings you win are really important agent. You're just doing deals ultimately." So, I kept that portion and it made up part of my my commission and my income was I probably did better out of that than than I did out of the sales stuff to be honest.

So, because I had this profile and I sort of continued to cultivate it. I'm a pretty good self-promoter too, you know. So I never, you know, I I was the president of the strata association and I'd go and give talks at the property council for on strata stuff. I always saw it as an inn and I was able to work it. Well, I saw it as an in a new a developer would give you their apartment complex and it would have a floor of office and then ground floor retail stuff. I was selling that stuff. So I swear you can sell it. You can manage the other.

Yep. You get the stuff from the developer off the plan. You get the first look at everything. So, you know, like I kept that connection because it served me well and and it was valuable and it was earning an income for me and then that reputation just kind of continued to to build out in strata world. So even though I say this period of time I was you know in agency most people just think of me but you still working for Doug at this stage.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the the guys that I eventually went into partnership with in Vantage, they had decided they were going to start a strata business and they were looking for someone to sort of be the face of it and was someone else's idea or was that your idea the

No, it wasn't. But I was approached.

Yeah. I really wanted to make it work in where I was because I was, you know, good friends with these people and I'm a loyal person and I kind of wanted to, you know, get make my make my fortunes with the people that I became friends with and loved and had worked with. But it just it just sometimes you can't and this is this is a lesson I've learned in life and I'm quite philosophical about it. You know, loyalty, it's only ever disloyal when it's costing you something, right? Like sometimes you just can't square that circle, you know? And a lot of people have said to me over the years, "Ah, they were crazy there.

They they should have, you know, they should have given you." And I'd say, "No, they shouldn't. What someone get cares about themselves

20% of my [ __ ] business. It's worth, you know, the business is probably worth 25 million bucks. someone is going to get like that just doesn't make sense. And um and it was a the strata business in particular for them was a real sacred cow, right? Um for good reason. So like unless I've got a $5 million check or unless it just there was not a way really to make that work. So it was inevitable that I was going to leave

and they wouldn't have seen your value until you were gone.

I think so. I think I was I was valued, but I was also not I didn't I didn't do enough to warrant enough respect. I was always kidding around and being a [ __ ] and like I was sort of I was a lovable kind of character in that in that environment, but I wasn't, you know, I wasn't a serious person.

Yeah. So, you know, I think I was maybe taken for granted a bit at that um that the impact that it might have had when I left and I probably didn't realize myself. Um but I was approached by the guys that I eventually went into partnership with and they were and they wanted to start a strata business. We were there was you know three partners looking for a four. Why did they want to start a strate business? What was their context? Well, they were so the two guys really that were behind it are the two guys that have since exited uh Paul Powderley and Peter Maloney. Um Paul Powderley is the CEO of Collers in our in our area.

So he knows that space. Yeah.

Knows that space and and and they had a really big project marketing channel. So they had they were at the time they were the sort of premium premier off the plan unit sales agency and they didn't do strata management. So they referred a lot of that stuff to me and you know they think why don't I refer it to my own business I guess.

Yeah they're looking money walking out the door. Um but there's real value in strata management. There's real value in the appointment from the developer of these developments and for the most part that's just given away you know. So we need you. So those four of you are what? 25% each.

25% each.

Why weren't you 50%? Why were we only 25%? Cuz you were the guy that was actually doing the work, right? Or be it getting paid.

Yeah. This question. I wish I had a time machine and you were the guy back there.

Like you were the guy that took the risk. You were the guy that quit your job.

I was the guy that took all the risk, you know. Um, look, it was an opportunity that that I don't think I otherwise, you know, I look back because at the time I was really wrestling with going out on my these guys came and approached me at a time when I I knew that it was time for me to go and do my own thing and I knew that I could do something. So, these guys approached me about that time and it was a it was a coin toss about whether I went with these guys or or I just went with my sister and my sister and I went and started a strata business together.

Looking back on it, you know that you can you can [snorts] you can dwell on the oh I would have you know I could own this whole thing and it was this great success story and you know like you can grumble about what you didn't what you didn't keep for yourself. The truth is I just don't I don't think I could have replicated the success that I had without the the influence of these other guys. Well did you get a lot of work from like the collier part? We got a bit they'll you know if you talk to Paul P he's a great guy but you know it's never as much as expected. Well, he's got there's always GST on something, you know.

So, if you if you depends who you talk to, he you talk to him, he go was all but there's a good there's a funny story actually when I came when I came when they approached me the first time they had a false start. They tried to get me a year earlier and we came really close and then they pissed me off because Paul had said, "Listen, here's all your three biggest clients and I've spoken to them and they've and um they're going to come over to this new venture that we're starting. um they're going to give us all their development work anyway. So, you may as well come on board because you know you're going to lose this c these customers anyway.

Oh, [ __ ] That's that was pretty daunting. I thought, [ __ ] now I knew these developers cuz I'd done a lot of work for them. And I built relationships with them. And I rang them and I'm like, ah. So, I've heard from Paul that you're going to give all your business to this new venture and you know, I'm thinking of going over. Do you think I should? And they all said the same thing. They said, "Well, that's funny. Paul's told us you're coming to go and work for you. [laughter] that's why you should come over.

You may as well give us all your business. And I went, "Ah, right." So anyway, look, there definitely there was significant influence from Paul and the Collier's um units that I wouldn't have otherwise managed, but there was a lot of stuff that I that I probably been able to decide to go with these three guys or not with your sister. I think it was just h it was sort of playing the odds all the whole time of my and I and I also have this this sort of ivory tower kind of fallacy as well. I've always when when I was at Ray White Ray White was not Ray White commercial was not like a big um it's not like the big JL's or Collers or whatever.

They're sort of they're franchises usually and they so the way we would do things when we do a deal is you'd go and get a [ __ ] form out of the thing and you write on it and scan it to this like it was really low tech and it felt like the little mom and mom and dad operation and I'd always look at these other collers and these guys and think ah that's shiny shoes.

Yeah that's that's that's where the serious guys are. I bet you they don't have forms that they fill out.

I guarantee they did. Turns [laughter] out, I guarantee every time you go and peep behind one of those doors and you think you're gonna see this much slicker operation, you're all you're always disappointed. You're always like, "Oh, [ __ ]

What do you got? How do you guys track that? You just got an Excel spreadsheet. You kidding me? Where's the

It's fascinating. Um

when you hear when you go to like a property event, a conference, and you hear all these um CIOS, CEOs talk about, oh, we're applying AI and we're doing this and

and you ask them and they still manage their leases in a spreadsheet.

Yeah.

Like they do none of this. Totally.

They do nothing.

And I've I've had, you know, some exposure to to that in in various contexts, particularly over the last couple of years.

Yeah. Work working with prop tech businesses or being involved as an investor in, you know, uh medi health businesses actually you get in and you look behind the door a lot of people are just you know spitting polish and and they're just hustling.

Yeah. But let let me get to I want to truly understand why why pick those three guys isn't that you didn't believe in yourself yet. You didn't believe you had that confidence to succeed. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure that was that must have been part of it, but it was also it really was that at the time not yet having had the veil lifted and it was they said from Collier, you know,

so it was that romantic notion, oh my god, they're amazing

romantic notion of of being of being part of the

at the big boys table, you know, these guys are the bigger influences and and and to a extent that that sort of was true just because is when you go and look behind the curtain, there's just, you know, a hamster on a wheel. It's not that sophisticated. They did still have, you know, they were connected in a way that

that you wouldn't have been yourself.

Yeah. That I wouldn't have been and that the place I came from wasn't. It was real influences that that and it was good, you know, I think it was good for me to be part of that world. See, I didn't I don't have this is almost the opposite of what you're saying. Don't. It's almost pathologically deficient in self-doubt, you know, like I look at that and not think, oh jeez, one day I don't be invited. I look at that and go, why aren't I there? That's, you know, I belong over there.

What am I? So, you're kind of like low on the self-doubt kind of thing.

I don't have self-doubt. I've never had any Yeah. It's never really occurred to me that things Yeah. that things wouldn't work out. And I've never felt I've never felt like I had to be I've never felt like I had to wait for someone to tell me it was time for me to take my spot wherever, you know, like and I used to even some of the girls I used to work with and I'd do um team up a lot with uh deals with leasing stuff with another guy.

That's kind of true. Like you kind of chose to make the move from Strata to leasing commercial.

Yeah.

Um there was probably two-way conversation to go to strata.

Okay. Okay. So, you start shroud. Does it take a lot of money to start up a shrider business back in the day? Is it is there a huge investment?

We all die, right? Little. Yeah.

So, it was just me. I was was I was the only one working in the business for a little bit. Then, we hired someone fairly quickly. And when And we weren't paying him nothing. We pay I think it was like 120 grand a year. So, it was it was he was a senior person that we poached who was running another business that was sort of imploding at the time. and and so there was there were costs but we put in 25 grand each to start 100 grand you got your business up and running

we never put in another cent we capitalized again by going to the bank and getting lines of credit and all but we never we never had to put in another scent

so your investors did really well out of this inve very well

so the two and I won't give numbers but Paul exited first on you know he nothing ever became acrimonious with anyone And each of the people who who got each of them got

exited they were ready to exit and they could see so of the four there's

Paul Padley who I was talking about Peter Maloney who's a old gruff another another real mentor of mine he was sort of the elder statesman but he's a real estate agent property manager Maloney's real estate in CRA great guy really sardonic though but they're both of a similar age sort of 60 odd now whereas me and group are of a similar age. So these guys while the thing was, you know, eventually things start became successful. They could see not only was there an opportunity for them to catch their chips and they' done well, they didn't they hadn't really had to do much for it, but they also could see Robert and I wanted to get, you know, to be properly motivated, we'd need to get more.

So they sort of had that natural kind of tension

and tensions build over the years. It never got like super tense, but there was tensions building there. You know, if me and Robert are going to go and put our blood, sweat, and tears into this thing. I'm not we're not doing it.

You want to be bigger reasonable to have all these other, you know, people that aren't putting the same in. So,

so how long how many years were you the CEO of Vantage for?

About 10 years.

10 years. And And where did you start? Where did you finish in terms of size, metric, or whatever metric?

We started with a duck egg. We had no zero. And we just grew it organically for mostly, you know, early days it was all new development stuff. But eventually, you know, by the time I was sort of I was by the time we got about 10,000 lots or something, we would have been, I don't know, maybe 60% new development um across the portfolio, fairly even now. Um so when I exited, I exited when I stepped out of that role, I didn't exit, I stepped out of that position. I think we had hit 14,000. So that's rare.

Yeah.

Is see a shrider manager grow.

Most every shrider manager I know atrophies.

Like they actually organically lose lots.

Yeah.

And the only way they grow is by buying someone else who's been able to grow, which tends to be your very smaller people. And it's very rare for someone to get

like more than a couple of thousand. It's very rare to I don't know many that 10,000 from zero. I don't think we knew like ignorance is sort of bliss and sometimes you know not like I didn't I didn't really have a reference point. I came from the business that Douggee had and they were 10,000 lot. I don't know. I sort of had this sort of you thought that was normal.

10,000 lots was kind of my aspiration. It was arbitrary but that's sort of what I felt like we could do that when I was working there. I kne you know I was winning 2,000 lots a year for for their business. They had a leaking. They'd come in the top though and they' just fall straight out the bottom.

Um but I guess I'm assuming Vantage Case you stopped the leaking out the bottom, did you?

It's Yeah. The Or you had a less than the other guys.

No, we didn't. We had really high retention probably for the first

Yeah. So you solved both. You sold 10 years really.

So you sold the sales and you sold retention. So you got

customers. We in a in a matter of speaking like we didn't really solve for retention. And we sold for retention in a way that was not that actually isn't scalable and actually is not you know what service was it or

well it was founderled personally involved in everything and that you know really having all the way from about zero to thousand lots I'd say. I was you know on a firstname basis with every committee and going meetings and doing all that stuff and and and that was good. I knew early on though that that was not the business that I like we wanted to have. It was fine to get from point A to point B, but but it was really clear that that wasn't going to be the thing that took us from a 6,000 lot business or a 10,000 lot business to, you know, a 20,000 lot business.

But it's a great way to get to 6,000 sc even even that's I don't think perhaps you don't realize that's an insane win.

Yeah,

I don't see that replicated a lot in your game. Yeah, there's a couple of businesses in CRA that have replicated it. But the funny thing, and I won't I won't be specific, but I'm being complimentary to them anyway, but um you know, another one of my competitors, we started at a very similar time. They we both grew, we're always about a thousand knots ahead of them, but we both grew at a similar trajectory. They just stopped at about 4 and a half, 4,000, 5,000 watts. That'd be okay. So, we just can't, you know, and the system broke, right? and they could not scale park and we just sailed on. But there's a real lesson in delayed gratification cuz this same person who I'm friends with, you know, friendies

would would often crow about we paid ourselves our 30% profit from day one. We didn't.

We were invested back in.

We were hiring people. It was really it was a human capital gain and it was there's this wave of new, you know, we're in a development boom at the time. there's all this new property coming. What are you going to do with the with the gas you've got in the tank? Well, we would we were just throwing it back at the um accelerating.

At the end of that decade, you got 14,000 lots. You actually proved you're a successful CEO, successful growth guy.

Why would you leave that? Why would you let your business partner now become the CEO? Yeah. Look, I proved I was so I sort of contradict myself here when I say I don't, you know, I've got deficiency in self-doubt because I do. This isn't this isn't some way of trying to beat myself up or try and solicit, you know, compliments from people. The truth was I'm not a great CEO and I I certainly I I think I proved that I was a great founder and I'm a good I was great at building. I'm good at putting thing building things together. I could sell the sizzle, get people to come on board when there's nothing to come on board to, you know, saw the dream.

Well, when you have 14,000 lots, how many employees would you have had?

What's the size of the office?

Oh, it was huge. It's hard. It's really difficult to benchmark cuz people hear these numbers and they go, "That doesn't sound right at all." But it was about 80 or so. You had big teeth, but you had enough people that you almost didn't know everybody.

Totally. Yeah. It was starting to get to that point.

Yeah. and and with with certainly with our business, I guess with a lot of businesses, you know, like as the as the problems really started to manifest and as it was clear that this needed something different, like it like we couldn't get but we couldn't get to the next

what made it clear like how did you know like you know the service standards were would slip considerably you know like you just weren't on weren't weren't in control of things big staff attrition and and profitability not commiserate to the size of the business that we'd grown. You know, it was because it was just this wild white knuckle rocket ride of just we're growing, we're growing, we're growing, hiring, you know, indiscriminate hiring and super inefficient and, you know, there's structure there, but the structure wasn't rigid and really clear and and structure is not your thing.

I like No, I like structure. I certainly appreciate structure, but I'm I'm yeah, there's some things that people are good at and that's not one of the things I'm good at. Conceiving it, mind mapping it, executing on it, but I've get far more high level, you know. So, in in in our business it was the case, but in in I'm sure this is the case in a lot of other businesses. A lot of that frame really didn't ar it wasn't a 14,000 lot problem. It was really probably a 9,000 lot problem. It just had this. you just persisted for that 6, 12, 18, 24 months. Partly that, but it just also had this, you know, lagging indicator, you know, like it was the the problems that we were seeing weren't like if you started to see problems, it wasn't a thing that was because we got to whatever 12,000 months.

But the the um the seeds of those issues laid way back. Sure. Way back then.

So then you decide that you're going to step aside and have your business partner step in as a CEO. Had you already started Taylor by then? had that idea. Yeah, we we had started Taylor by then. Yeah, we probably So, what have I been maybe two years out of the out of the hot seat with Robert? So, Taylor's probably about four years old. So, we're probably about 2 years into

And and why is Taylor separate? Why isn't it just part of Vantage?

The aspiration for Taylor is has really always been to service businesses beyond Vantage truck.

Okay. So, if you're owned by Vantage, you could not sell to a competitor, which that makes sense. Okay. Yeah. Like I've like Vantage has is a sand pit and has proven a great sand pit, but Vantage is really just the way.

Hopefully they're your number one customer.

They are.

I'd be very disappointed if Rupert didn't buy.

No, no, they're a number one customer. But you know, that's it really is the proving ground. Um, and you know, it's sort of it's high degree of difficulty, high chance of never being able to un unlock the crack the code, but if we can do it, then it's attractive to every strata company in the country. Like there's no one who would not be interested in the conversation of we think we know how to unlock an extra $100 of revenue. So the So what's the 30 secondond summary of what Taylor does just so people can understand? Taylor, it aggregates demand for services in strata communities and aggregates supply of those services and connects them in a really efficient way.

So, for example, I'm in a PA managed uh um townhouse.

Yep.

So, they um pest control the common areas.

Yep.

And I get like a leaflet under my door say we'll do the common areas, pay an extra 90 bucks, we'll do your area as well. It's exactly the same concept just executed better

in a more shame is if I just either because I leave this in my letter box and I check my letter box like once a quarter.

Yeah.

Um so by the time I get I'm like damn I've missed it.

Yeah.

If they only did it better, I would buy that every single time.

Yeah. You need to like there's so many friction points and you know what we started out to do what we started out thought we were going to do is just like it's just mushroom. It's part of the challenge in sort of raising money is like this thing mushrooms so big. It's it's almost hard. It's I have a hard time nailing a pitch to to get people to actually even understand what it is. And I and and I'm probably got a bit of I just maybe somewhere deep down I'm like I just would rather just go and do it and show it and just show some results rather than it's really hard to sell the idea of it.

Like it's hard cuz I mean you've got to really tell your pitch to your audience if you're non strata. Like it's a complex thing to understand. I did like this Shark Tank thing and I thought I was nailed it and the and it was like a friendly Shark Tank thing, right? It was like this um cub. I don't know if you know the Cub.

Yeah, I've heard of Cub. Yeah. This thing.

So they they have one of those and people people came. I was one of the last ones to present. Everybody came out and they were really friendly to them. There wasn't Shark Tank where they were like [ __ ] really sucking. I came out. I thought I nailed it and they just tore strips off me. They were like, I'm confused. I have no idea what you're talking about. It's really It is actually really hard to get.

If you live in strata world, you get it. But if you're not in strata,

if you're not in strata, it's a different world.

Super esoteric. Um, so but but yeah, like it is the same idea of of the the PA stuff, but like you've got to be more you've you've really got to have um, you know, really good sources of data and data verification. Who are the people in in these buildings? We're interested not just in the owners. We want strata is such a weird thing and coming from a real estate background, you know, strata managers can't just can't get out of their own [ __ ] way to be business people, right? Like the amount of times through my whole career I've spoken to strata managers and they and you go, "Do you collect the tenant das?" "Ah, we don't deal with tenants.

We don't want to know about tenants." I'm like,

"You got this."

I just can't understand how people don't couldn't see the value. Strato managers often don't think like owners.

They Yeah. They don't think like business owners.

Just even in your service, you know, isn't it more efficient to deliver a service if you can tell everyone, hey, that power's going to be like just they're just allergic to this idea that there's that there's some value in harvesting that data. So Taylor's, you know, first real like problem that it needed to solve was how do you validate all of the data? How do I keep how do I get all the details of all the owners, not just the owners, but their tenants? And if you join owners, I want everyone's details. If you got, you know, a share house, I want everyone's zs. How do I get that data and maintain it and keep it to a really high degree of um accuracy?

How did you how did you get your first 2 mill that you put into Taylor? Was that through

that personal funding external? So the the partners in Taylor were the same for shareholders advantage y

plus Candace my sister who runs it and who's

Did you get more than more than one fifth for yourself?

No. Tell me. Oh my god, I'm so disappointed. I don't think we'd be friends anymore.

I know. Well, you know, at the time I didn't. Every undertaking that you think,

you know, it was a fairly simple narrow idea strategy. We were going to we were going to put parcel lockers in these buildings, intelligent parcel lockers that you needed to be on Taylor to be able to get access to them. And that was how we were going to that was our Trojan horse. And that was fairly simple. I wasn't expecting that I was going to be pouring so much of my time and energy into it. It was it was just grows in complexity.

Play that back to you. Right. So you had three investors. You made an insane amount of money with them for them. Um, you got your next venture. Every single one will follow you on in a heartbeat, right?

Yeah.

They made a great return out of this super cool guy. I'm going to make great return my second time around. I reckon even if you said you're all five of us will invest the same, but 80% says to you, if I was an investor, I'd say yes.

Yeah. Well,

say yes and I might need some representation or some I don't know business coaching. I I to me Yeah. And and to be fair, Mike, because you would have, right, if you'd put money in and you 10 or 20 or 30 exed it,

of course,

and that second guy, second time around, said, "Okay, put money in, but I'll give you 5%, not five."

Like, would you ever say no?

I don't know. I don't know what the answer is, Sarah. But I mean, to me, it was like I was I was wanting to get into this new exciting thing with the same exciting team that I'd done this other exciting.

I totally get you want to get in with the same people. What I'm trying to understand is why didn't you negotiate a different deal for yourself? I I look in I wish that I had to be fair.

Is it Is it that you didn't know to do it? You didn't?

Well, there's a few different What was it? No, it was I probably just at the time I felt like it was it was I was pleased to be able to invite my sister and for her to have a 1/5if share in it as well

when she didn't have anything to do with Vantage and you know so that was sort of like an invitation to come and participate in this thing at an equal share and similar to what you know until you shout all over it I look back on my time at Vantage and I was like I got led into this thing and I made had all this success and made all this money now I feel like left too much on the table. So that felt like a win. Me and Candace, you know, 20% each, so it's 40% between us. We do everything as as a team anyway. Um, and in fairness, I I I didn't have it was a small idea when it started.

It didn't Now I've got such high conviction. I think this is got more potential than any strata business that I'm involved in. But at the time, I didn't realize that. So you just and I'm a flippant guy. I made a flippant decision. And then if I can be bluntly honest, I couldn't have funed this thing on my own anyway. Like all for all the success of Vantage Strata and going from zero to, you know, being worth 25 million bucks and I own half of it. There's not much that [ __ ] money that's available to me. Like it's all wrapped up.

I'm not talking about getting the funding. Like I would have got the same amount of funding. Like that's a given, right? You got to fund this properly.

Yeah.

Cuz you had an ex you have an exit advantage, right? So there's no huge cash part to go to reinvest in the next thing. I'm just trying to understand why didn't you ask for more this time.

I think I think you've made your point, Sab. I I can understand why.

Are you trying to get to

No, like what was it that made you? So, I reckon I wonder if there's a connection between that and the question we're trying to solve, right? Why can I raise for others but not for myself?

Yeah. And I just maybe maybe not. I'm just trying to understand why.

There could be a connection.

I don't know that there is. I think I I think this simple maybe unsatisfying answer is that it was you know it was just a it was just a flippant thing. I didn't I didn't see this as the next big thing that I was going to pull myself into. It was sort of a little side thing and I was like ah what you know it was it started out probably more as a as a thing of vantage like the origin of it started out as this like this cog of vantage. So the natural evolution for that was when I'm like oh no let's break it off but all the conversations and all the thought planning around it had started as the Vantage team expand we were putting out you know where's expanding this extra sort of division if there's a link between that and the not being able to raise money for myself stuff you know let me let me ask let me give you a couple couple possibilities tell me if any brands need

to give everyone the same cut that feels like the fair thing to do.

Yeah. Everyone puts the same amount of money in, everyone gets their fair cut. Is that something that's important to you? Yeah. Uh yeah. on the face of it. I mean, and you might be going there anyway, but what actually ends up happening in in practice is it all it turns out to be not fair because everyone's contributing different levels, money, but but all these other guys are passive and the only people contributing anything surplus to money and sleepless nights and sitting up, you know, booking air conditioning services in at [ __ ] over the Christmas holidays. It's only it's only my sister Candace that do that. Yes, I'm talking about one step before that, right?

So, was it that

I mean, is one of the motivators for you fairness? Is is that a is that a thing that might have driven this decision or is that not a thing that drove this?

Oh, look, I'm an in I'm an inherently fair person. It doesn't it sometimes doesn't occur to me not to just do the fair thing, you know, and it and yeah, like Yeah, I let me use a different way to say fairness. Equalness. Yeah. Well, we're four equal partners in Vantage. It just it just my my automatic assumption is we're going to be four equal partners in this other thing that we do, you know.

Then was it more that you wanted to be equal partners or you just didn't know there was another way to do it?

Probably a bit. There's probably quite a bit of that. I didn't I didn't know that there was another way to do it. everything that I do and everything that I have, transactions, property stuff, investments, and all this, but it's all and and I got to I'm hoping the day comes when I can get out of this mindset, but it's all [ __ ] hustle, man. Like, I don't have the resources to do a lot of stuff and I haven't. So, if I want to get into something, like if I saw some opportunity to to do something here and I needed, you know, I needed to find a way to to make it happen. Like, I kind of need to bring these people along with me.

And and in fairness, I I don't know that they would have said, "Yeah, yeah, we'll fund 80% of it, but we'll but you know, we'll we'll let you have the lion's share." I just don't think that would have that would have been the case.

Everyone has amnesia with vantage, too, by the way. like you get and me and my business partner great we're like brothers you know but

like you know everyone has like sort of forgets their contribution that was made or or

everyone always overindexes their contribution

overindex every single person

and I'm sure I'm guilty of it as well you know

but but

yeah like the I'm sure one day like we'll look back on it and you know Ret will be the guy that came into Vantage and made it made it profitable and, you know, but people forget about the the 10 years of, you know, going to [ __ ] committee meetings and having people calling you up on Sundays and all that stuff that builds a foundation.

Yeah. People just sort of people overestimate their own their own role in it. One of the board members that I used to work with told me one day and he made it sound like a very insightful comment he was making um that you know sure Steve Jobs took Apple from one trillion to so zero to 1 trillion but Tim Cook took it from 1 to three trillion.

Yeah. Like oh my god Tim Cook is so amazing and in my mind no zero to a trillion is so much harder.

Totally. Zero to zero to zero to zero to 100 bucks is really hard. It's that hard and it's the it's the most frightening. It's the most risky. It's the most had such a failure to

and that's a thing that I sort of carry around with me a bit

that and I don't I don't actually need accolades. I'm not I'm not everyone likes

to be given a pat on the tummy and everyone everyone you know there's no person me included that doesn't like someone saying what

but I'm not driven by it. It's not the feel to some people that is the fuel that drives them forward. It's not it's nice it's but it's sort of it's not the core thing that I need. So another thought is the other reason that you might have gone equals on the investment is felt it might have felt like you're reducing your risk you're reducing your downside.

Yeah, I think there's a a a really good sense of that to be fair.

Yeah, explain that more.

Well, you know, reducing reducing my personal risk not so much, but spreading spreading the risk to me is not too far off increasing the increasing the the chance of success. Um, you know, I'd really want

Is it increasing the chance of success or reducing the chance of failure?

I I think one is it because I think it's often it's one or the other.

If it's one or the other and it's binary, then it's increasing the chance of success for me. I don't think anything's ever going to fail. Like I'm, you know, from

for I'd make a terrible fund manager or something like

you believe everything.

Yeah, I believe everything. I'm so

That's why your buddies come to you to invest in their companies.

Yeah, exactly. There's a um, you know, I'm working on this theory. I'm sure I read it somewhere maybe. I don't think I made it up. I don't think I came up with it, but it's like I'm I'm perennially late, you know, and people are like people think it's so disrespectfully like you think your time is more valuable than our time. And that, you know, my MS is always on to me about that. She comes from a military family. And the truth is actually if I think my theory is I'm just optimistic. It's not that I plan to be late ever. I look at something and I go, "Yeah, I can get all that done in that period of time, be there in that amount of time." And I'm I kind of am that way, you know, naively in a business context, people come to me with an idea and I go, "Wow, this is going to be this is going to be great." You know, I find it really hard to not get enthusiastic

by stuff. And that's a real blind spot for myself, you know, like I've got to be I've got to really check my own biases on things like Taylor and other things. If I just

I mean is tell an example of that?

Yeah, I've I've I've looked at that and examined that, you know, and I am I'm nothing if not self-aware, you know, like I've really had to check my biases on that to see is this just some cost fallacy? And and I'm confident the answer is no. And it's not it's and that doesn't mean like to me I don't have to get to a point where I'm like this is definitely going to work and it's a no-brainer but it's it's the risk versus reward ratio upside to me is is there's enough positive indicators there like in a in a in any given building. You know we will run a campaign to do something like the pest or whatever.

we'll get 30% penetration within that community and we'll get it year after year and we'll get it in different areas and we'll get it in different types and I'm like that is a that to me and and it's been a a grind and it's not efficient and you can't scale it cuz cuz we can't have a system that relies on sort of a lot of this manual stuff but I know I can build the tech that makes that efficient you know partway through that we've succeeded in that regard um to in a lot of respects But if I know I've got that 30% pen, I know 30% of the people in this community are going to want to take up that service.

I know I've got the raw materials of something there like it's it's and if I if I can deliver that at scale efficiently. I know there's something there. So I've thought about whether I've just got this blind spot where I'm where I'm all in on it. And I don't think I I don't think I am.

Yeah. Fair enough. Well, do me a favor. After you succeed at Taylor, do your next thing. [laughter] Make sure we own the majority company.

50/50 on the Are you in? Let's do it.

But if you gave me 50% of your company for just a bit of cash, I' i'd snap your hand off. I'd take you straight away.

Okay, good.

You should be like 80% of your next venture.

Yeah. And by then you might have a bit of cash from Taylor and that might have done really well. I needed that funding anyway. Might have a bit of cash from Vantage. Start trying out and couldn't profit now. So yeah,

and it's and again it's part of the part of the motive sometimes I think if you like you kind of need to be desperate to go and raise money. Maybe we never really had that with Taylor. We we've we have the ability to selfund it because even though I don't have a huge pile of cash to go and throw at it at once we can fund it.

You can be efficient as well putting out, you know, like if I'm contributing I think I put in about 8 we all put in about 8,000 bucks a month to keep to you know to continue development horizon. I can we do that sort of in perpetuity. People get sick of that and it's got fatigue but it's kind of means we I kind of get a little bit further. I'm like no I I just don't want to go and reveal this just yet. I want to like there's these things I want to get to and then

but to me it's this never sort of it's this kind of farm moving sort of horizon that that I sort of got to keep pushing down the line. So where the 2 million you've gotten so far that's been from the the five people and selfunding is it? Have you have Have you got Have you got an external funding yet?

Yeah. No, we haven't had external funding. It's been it's been all from ourselves except except that and it's like doesn't lend itself to a podcast because it's quite complicated but a a major part of the business um is this Trojan horse strategy of these parcel lockers. So we sell parcel lockers to a building. They pay us you know an establishment fee for the parcel locker. We bank that and then we get a line of credit through NAB as an asset um finance.

So we've probably got

yeah half a million $600,000 worth of kind of working capital that

Yeah.

that you've converted to working capital.

That's right.

Okay. That kind of that's money that's come from the bank essentially.

So do you need to raise money?

I don't know that I do. Um I need to raise money. I like I we don't need to raise money. I I really would like to raise money.

Why is that?

Cuz I'm I've just we're now four years into it. We now really have really good clarity on what we need to do, the things we need to build, the tech we need to, you know, continue to build out and we've got, you know, a couple of really great guys, but they're the bandwidth is always chewed up to 100%.

You know,

and how how much would you raise if you went out to market?

Not heaps. I think like I did the maths, I reckon I'd like to get about 1.2 million bucks.

Mhm. So it's really accelerant money.

Yeah.

And it's and and it's got two two sort of prongs to it. One is, you know, to be able to hire the the tech devs just to accelerate. Like we'll get there eventually. It'll just take, you know, what what will take another two years, we could hopefully do in six months. So it's it's part that and part sales team. Like we now actually have a product. We got a product market fit and it actually is

we got to commercialize now and get it out. like I want to go and sell this.

Why is it that, and this isn't so implicit in your question, if Pat came to you and said, "I need to raise $1.5 million." You're totally helping put a plan together.

Yeah.

You're totally connecting to 15 of your friends. Oh, you connect to me, right?

You totally connect 15 of your friends. It is a It's sort of a question to answer. I think I think what it comes down to

is

particularly for some of the introductions that I've made that have ended up being successful. I kind of I kind of want to reserve the opportunity to to go to some of these guys, but I feel like I've got I've got one chance to do it. You know what what makes you say that? I don't know. like I don't feel like I can keep I don't feel like if I've got one shot to go and put my best foot forward and and and you know ask these guys for some cash. I I if I fail at that or I don't do it, you know, we're not ready or it doesn't make sense or there's no evidence to support it, you know, I've kind of I might have kind of burned that bridge.

Kind of burnt that bridge. I'll come back for a for a second for a second go.

And and do you think that's real that you aren't ready? The message isn't right. The product is

I definitely think the message isn't right. Like I need like we've put this pitch to you. Like I've got such pitch fatigue from every [ __ ]

I've seen I've seen the I've seen the Taylor pitch

and everyone's got every time like we spent too much time taking feedback from everyone in sort of in in pre having gone and spoken about it phase that it's just this complicated sort of Frankenstein of a thing and

yeah it's definitely not right. We never really had what I need is a venture capitalist to go to really understand exactly what we're doing, spend some time and come out and say here's the pitch that you need.

Oh, cuz totally because your pitch is written from a founders perspective.

Yeah.

Not from an investor's perspective.

Yeah. Yeah.

And probably from a strata a a strata acolyte perspective talking to someone.

Yeah. This all translates

to totally solvable. you spend a couple days with the right person, you can totally solve that.

Yeah.

So, he's also wasn't it also like it also wasn't totally by mistake either. Like in my in my mind like the the the investors I want. So, going back to your question, do we need do we need capital? Do we need to raise capital? Maybe we do, maybe we don't. I don't think we need to. But if I was to, I know the people I want to raise capital from. It's not, you know, with respect. It's not some dude at CB who's money. I want to I want to get it from from your big potential customers. I imagine.

Yeah. It totally makes sense cuz you want to lock them in. Yeah. I want them I want them to go

point this at our portfolio now. Yeah. Let's use let's have a much bigger sand pit to go and make this thing make this thing work. So like I sort of intentionally my my hope or my belief is when I'm pitching it to those to th to that audience at least it translates and that's actually the strategic smart money that I'm actually after. They help me understand like often um what's hard to untangle is the difference between the emotion and reality. So the emotion is you're not quite ready, the business isn't ready. Is that reality?

Yeah. I I mean no. I think I think the answer is it doesn't have to be the reality. It is because I just am not like because it requires a lot.

Is it is it the objective reality?

Yeah, it's it's the amount of time that I actually have and bandwidth that I have to actually what I'd like to do to be perfectly honest. Ret doesn't watch this. I've already said stuff about him. He said amazing stuff about him. I get in trouble. I hope I get a chance to say all the good stuff about him. [laughter] But the um you know, if I had my way, I'd be 100% deployed in Taylor, but probably

5% 10%.

You're not getting enough time to bring that last little part together.

I don't have the I just don't have the time to bring it together. Yeah. My sister Candace, who runs it, she's brilliant. She's like on the spectrum. She's inc She's the most incredible product person like I've ever I've ever known. But her role and her lane is not

to go and find the money or

not executing on the actual thing and the tech stuff like it's super super hard.

But help me understand that you're so passionate about it yet it takes up so little of your time allocation.

Yeah. And that's that's mainly you know there's part of that's just sort of personal circumstance stuff. I mean, I had by the time I left and stood aside to from Vantage in the CEO role, you know, I let go of a pretty handsome salary. So now I'm

You went from getting paid salary plus dividends to just dividends, right?

To just dividends.

Yeah. And then you know we've had a couple of years lean years even though we've been making more profit these days. We've did you know under my stewardship stupid [ __ ] things division 7A loans and like so

so you know we've had we got a really good CFO who has made us take our medicine these these last couple of years. So

you know it's only like up to this point you know dividends haven't been like pouring in. And I also um had my first child last year. September last year and no September the year before. Sorry. My partner stopped working as well. So got all these things together. I moved to Melbourne.

You know, I I've had to deploy my time into things that bring money in the door.

Yeah. Which which kind of makes sense.

So but is it just a timing thing that everything everything in my life is a timing thing?

But is it a timing that will solve this, right? that well once in 6 12 months yeah you're freed up a bit but ends are greater you can just spend the mind space and sort this out.

Yeah totally I'm I'm I'm absolutely certain of that like it's like I'm back in full-time deployed advantage now because we Robert and I exited our other business business partner and we agreed between the two of us we were going to swallow this huge you know cost of buying out the other the partner we're both going to be in it. So, I'm I'm there full-time deployed doing that. But, you know, like that's what we've been able to do in a pretty short period of time since then, you know, has created a fair bit of space as well. So, I can certainly see the time coming when I'm able to really focus my time and energy in Taylor.

But, it is a it is a timing thing.

Yeah. My problem is I've got a I've got a real delusion like what for whatever that thing is that makes me late you know is the same thing that makes me look down the road and go three months you know I reckon three months it's why I make commitments and buy property you know options and stuff and I just I think ah how am I going to pay for that am I

I've got 12 months around it'll be fine you know

so so then is this actually a problem you don't need to actively solve time will solve this for you. Time will solve it but but like that's you know life has many paths before it. time will solve it if I can't solve it faster and sooner um in in the meantime. And I would like to solve it faster and sooner and you're going to want to kick me in the head because, you know, like that looks like, you know, diluting chairs and bringing on other partners, but to me,

you know, you're only alive once. Like I like I don't want to I don't want to grind it out another five years to get where I could get to and frankly.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with getting external funding and diluting yourself out.

Um, if that makes sense and the the pie gets bigger, it's always the best thing to do. Yeah. I was just saying that you deserve a bigger piece of that pie, which is probably just a nuance to that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Um

but you won't be able to go and get proper funding till you're freed up to do this full-time, right?

Totally. Yeah.

It just won't Yeah. That is that is the reality of it. And you know, the the the silver lining to that is that you know, providing the other partners remain committed, you know, we can continue to to to chug long. And there's there's also a real value like this sounds really contradictory but if I've gotten what I wanted much earlier we wouldn't have had the business we had. There's a real value in slowness. You know, I've always like I read a lot of books and I love biographies and I'm interested in tech leaders and all this, but all this move fast and break stuff stuff I just do not that hasn't been my experience. Like we would have made

just such different decisions that I we wouldn't have uncovered some of the the absolute gems that we've uncover uncovered that were that were just through because we had no choice but but to go slow. But I think that that scenario only works where you're in in a deeply competitive space. If you know like a chat GBT versus Gemini versus anthropy,

like you got to be doing stuff crazy fast and you break every ethical rule you can just to get the new version out.

You're totally right. And I know exactly what your point is there. And this is one of the things that like I say often to my sister Candace, you know, when we're when we're frustrated at how long it's taking or frustrated at how hard a problem is to solve that we're focusing on at the moment, you know, a grin comes over because I'm like there's that we're not we're in this blue ocean by ourselves. There's no one that we're competing with and you're still three generations ahead of anyone else, right?

No one can copy it. like no one will be able to copy it because it was so [ __ ] hard to do that it's just not replicatable. The only way to replicate it is to no one's going to be able to look at it and go that's a great idea. I'm going to do it myself.

People can do it. It takes this really

every manager I know has kind of tried. I've seen so many urbanized we tried um tried

and I've tried to raise like I've pitched to a couple of other strata businesses. I've gotten the answer like from from

we'll just do it ourselves. Well, there's two answers. One is we're just going to do this ourselves

and they never do that one.

They never do.

The other one is the other answer I've gotten more than once is I don't think it can be done. Like it's not solvable.

It's not Yeah. I think it's a I think my first reaction when you told me about it

only cuz I've been one of those guys with not a lot of resource not a lot of effort tried to solve this

yeah like six seven years ago probably oh cuz I've been out of four years now probably eight nine years ago we tried to solve it

and it's it's hard to solve a problem someone else has not already solved

it is really hard I find that a positive like I that gives me motivation it's really hard to solve and when other when if we solve it to the extent we solve And I'm and I'm convinced we will and there'll be, you know, there'll be a um evidence of the fact that there is a commercial outcome here for people that want to go and solve it. Others will come and try and solve it and I've no doubt they will, but it'll take them just take them time.

There's no road map that doesn't involve I don't believe there's a fast track road map that doesn't involve this really really painstaking stuff.

Yeah. how you kind of said you're super optimistic, then I'll tether that with you probably have quite a high risk tolerance because you don't see the risk.

Yeah, I do unfortunately have

which which is great. But what it means is um like if you invest in like a tech startup like Patrick's, right? He's got a one in 50 chance of success.

Yeah.

Um which is probably right, but if he succeeds, he'll get 150x. So So you you'll be fine.

Yeah.

Um so on average, you'll probably do okay. Um

cuz Patrick and you are trying to solve problems that some no one's actually succeeded in solving. Yeah.

So, you probably have about a one in 50 chance of success.

Yeah.

But if you went and set up a strata manager, I don't know, Vantage Sydney or, you know, Chris Miller Sydney Strata.

Yeah.

Um, a,000 people have solved that.

Yeah.

Based on your experience, you got like a 99% chance of success. You're But your return is much smaller.

Yeah.

The return's smaller. It's less, you know, it's funding and it's it's fun, you know, like

and I've done that. I own 50% of Vantage and like that's

so but that kind of explains to me why like you didn't go pick a strata auxiliary service.

Yeah.

You didn't go buy a plumbing company for for example, right?

Or you didn't go buy a facilities management building company building management cuz that's what every other strata manager has done. Right. It is and it's what and and it was like believe me over the over the years you know that was probably where my gaze had turned before I turned to to Taylor and I've seen other strata companies that were trying to you know do like market aggregations show me what their strategy in it is and it's always this what do you call it concentric circles where you've got the strata management then they go oh we're going to do valuations and we're going to

we'll do regs we'll do leases we'll do these other things but they're always

landlord insurance will do. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, no, not even that stuff. It's the it's it's the they always tend to be and they focus on the primary services that that their clients sort of need. So, common area cleaning, building valuations, these, you know, fire stuff.

Yeah. And what they're trying to do, they're trying to sell more services to the same person.

Yeah.

You're trying to sell more services to other people that live in the same area.

Totally. Yeah. And the first one is probably lower risk, but it's lower return.

It's lower risk. I It's inherently in my mind inherently conflicted. Um not insanely conflicted.

Yeah. Not unsolvably conflicted.

Is it unsolvably conflicted?

I don't think it's unsolvable. I think have not seen someone solve it.

Well, I don't effectively I' I have thought about the way you would or you should do that in a strata business. So Vantage has Vantage strata and we have building management as as a business as well, but it's all totally vertically integrated. There's no question about is this a related company. It's they wear advantage shirts. It's part of you know we're offering two services. You don't have the the illusion of a different company name.

There's no illusion of company. There's no. So, um I I think if you're going to try and vertically integrate, you know, you need to be able to say we can also do these other services like and you know,

you can choose us or you can choose not to.

Why not? Because you've got obviously a great intellect, a lot of energy. Why not apply your your energy to something that's a lot more likely to succeed

like one of these auxiliary services. So, just sell something else to the same person.

It might not be building, might not be sure, might be something else.

Yeah. I think I think that the what excites me about the the Taylor stuff is that it actually is the much bigger opportunity and it is and it bothers me to be fair um that there that it is just so blindly inefficient. Like you have an apartment building of 400 units that will settle, you know, the building finished this month. people are moving into it. They all get a manufacturer's warranty that says, "By the way, you got to service your air conditioner every year." And there's and no one has thought, well, why don't we coordinate some of these things together and harness the collective buying power of all of these people that need to do the same thing to the same Mitsubishi air conditioner at the same time.

I find there's a very weak correlation between inefficiency and solvable in a monetizable kind of way. Yeah, I think I think to the extent that we fail, it is because the efficiency dividend was was unable to be was not great enough.

Yeah. Well, it was unable to be unlocked and you know like at the time that you know we sort of find ourselves we've got this you know convergence of mobile app technology pretty good you know sort of tech capability to sort of overlay to unlock some of these things and the guys that tried smarter communities and all I bet you they were trying it 15 years ago generation ago it was a different it was a different time you know Um I I think you've got to revisit that based on the tools and the and the and the things that are available today. And so and a lot of the insights that we've had, you know, take me back to so much of the solutions, so much of the problem, so much of the solution actually lies in really foundational stuff that people aren't thinking of.

It's not how do you get the best, you know, deal from the pest control person. It's actually about data verification. It's a really a it's so much a data play to figure out who your customers are and actually know who they are.

Know who they are. Have actually have a means of collecting that data and refreshing that data and verifying that data and having that happen without

the need for people to wander on to your app and go decided I'm going to check out what's for sale on the strata pot. That's not how people behave. You know, people aren't logging in, you know, the building links and the they've all got a marketplace area. They think that people are going to wander in and buy stuff. That's just not what's going to happen. You need to go to the people

with the compelling, convenient offer and make it super easy for them to to make use of that. And if you don't know who the people are, if I don't have a good sophisticated means

of knowing that you moved out and you were a tenant and someone else moved in, like then you really like you got to start there.

Yeah. I mean, something you said just kind of made sense for me that like one of your core strengths is you meant like it's your people skills, your relationships. So, now you just figure out how to sell to more people, right?

Yeah.

And you're just trying to figure out how to sell to people at scale.

Totally. And it's also like like my my core belief with this stuff and what sort of motivates me is that um I I'm taking a punt. They actually people actually want these services in the first place. Like if you live in an apartment and I see the world through the prism of my own experience, right? I'm not trying to talk someone into the idea that they want this particular thing. They actually already want it. It's latent or they're utilizing or they're doing it anyway. I live in an apartment and I [ __ ] I'm in the middle of the city. It's too far to drive conveniently to the dry cleaner. But if you're in Canberra in the middle of winter, it's it's a really cold, blistery walk.

and I've got to take all my shirts and, you know, and walk over to the dry cleaner. I'm like, why can't someone come and come and coordinate that for me? And I live in this building that there's a good chance that there's going to be a lot of other young working professionals who are all getting their shirts and suits, right?

Be 10 people every day, right? Yeah. The need and the need is there and they're actually already they're actually already utilizing those services. It's just not it's just not been met met in a convenient way that they can that they can make use of.

How come the needs are obvious? You've got the competence to sell to people. You've got a good team around. You got funding. You've been doing this for 4 years. How come you haven't succeeded yet? How come it hasn't just completely exploded?

Why do I not have a tailor locker in my little complex zero?

Yeah. To be to be fair, the it's a technical challenge. Like it's actually the tech the the tech like it's not a tech business but it'd be you could easily mistake it for a prop tech business cuz tech has to work to enable all those transactions.

Tech has to work to be able to make all those transactions work and if and what you think seems fairly simple at the surface level as you dig into it it's much much much more complicated as you as you get further in. So we're we're far enough down the line now that we've we've re we really know we've built a lot of stuff. We are we transact a lot of a lot of stuff like if we've got a apartment building that that um completes and we go and get a depreciation report from a um from a quantity surveyor and we go out to the community like we sell them without without doing anything. New owner comes in, are you an owner?

Are you an are you an investor? You're an investor. Great. You get this offer for depreciation. We'll sell it to you for $3.99 instead of paying 700 bucks. Buy that every day. every every day of the week I buy that.

Yeah, that happens. And that's the stuff that gets me excited because I I know, you know, now I need to be able to build that same flow for all of the all of these.

This is your first time building tech.

Yeah. And it's been so

Yeah.

It's been so grueling because, you know, I many years ago I was involved in a food business and I should have [ __ ] learned my lesson then to be honest cuz I look back now and I'm like I've done the same thing. I think if you're going to be in a food business or in a restaurant business and you're not a chef, it's hard. You're going to get

I tell you what, you're going to make a lot of mistakes and you're going to get fleeced by a lot of people. I was going to say more than that. You'll get screwed

cuz developers one of their core competencies you think is making tech. No, no, no.

It's to screw the person who's paying.

Yeah, that's right.

Cuz it's like, you know, if I went to a builder to go build me a house, they will screw me.

Totally. Yeah. And I will not know better. That's not my thing.

That's exactly right. And you can kind of get enough sense that you know you you work out you're being screwed or you think you know things aren't going the way you want them to but you don't know enough to be able to

to penetrate that

when you think you do they'll talk you out of it

and they'll convince you you're wrong.

Yeah. And then you make and then you make irrational decisions, you know, like we like we're ch, you know, there was so there was a lot of a lot of and I like I looking back I don't think much of it was frustrated with the pace but I don't think a lot of it was totally sunk cost even when we scrapped and started again because it was that scrap and start again that the the way that we were able to to rebuild things and the structure of the architecture that we had was learning.

That sounds like justification.

No, it's not human. No,

it isn't. And I and I'm not like cuz when I say scrapped and rebuilt, it wasn't that we totally scrapped and rebuilt a thing that we built that was unusable. We built stuff on Zoho. You know, we've got to a point like, well, actually,

we need to actually own this thing. Zohoo is working quite fine but it's not like we were able to look down the line down the road and go well if we are wanting to have something but that was a good useful way of being able to prove that people wanted to buy these things and people wanted to transact but everything when you build something on something else everything needs a workar around everything needs a like I don't want a workaround I want a thing that is designed for the thing that I want it to do from from cuz I think at the outset I think it's common for most People underestimate the complexity in something they don't know.

It's like whenever you like, you know, remember a decade ago all taxi drivers were mortgage brokers or real estate agents and they're investing in property.

Totally.

Or they were putting their money into building apartment complexes.

Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly right.

Because And they don't know what they don't know.

Yeah. And you and and it's unknowable. And and in the in the tech world, the best the only Yeah. The only sort of frame of reference that I have was that period of time in a food business, not being a chef, not understanding how kitchens work and how you like that. You just you're just out to see. And we've spent a lot of time with Taylor being out to see. And that's still a key. Like we've got a really good like I'm really happy with with our guys now. I just I just need five of them. I've only got one getting really great outcomes. It's just so slow that it's frustrating. But it is still a key sort of problem I think that that at some point I'd like to solve by having someone in the business, a stakeholder in the business

that actually has that competence. The problem with that though is that you can't just find anyone to bring in as a stakeholder too because they're just as likely to. You need someone you trust. You need someone you trust. You need the capability and the technical understanding, but also someone that you're going to just take the pieces. What you got out of your three co-founders or three investors advantage was you got a group of three people you trusted and they trusted you.

Yeah.

So they just know in day one Chris is not screwing us. We're not screwing Chris.

That's right. Yeah.

But what you didn't get was the dozen skills you need to pull this off. You're absolutely right.

Yeah. And it's kind of hard to get both.

It is. It's really Yeah. It's really hard to get both. and and you and you just, you know, you just bumble on into into mistakes without like hindsight's 2020. You know, if we were starting again,

you know, even if we had to make all of the technical mistakes, what would you get? You get obviously you're the sher guy, you get a tech guy, you get like a trades person,

you get like a locker expert or something. I don't know. Yeah, I probably I probably wouldn't worry about the trades trades expert, but definitely we would dial it up in the in the in the tech, you know, someone who I don't I don't know that you need a coder. You you need someone who knows how to speak the language of the tech people

in the same way that you're not a strider manager anymore.

That's right.

You probably know that game, but you can manage a str manager.

Totally when they're scamming you.

Totally. Is a really good analogy. Um, and that's a that's a deficiency that that we've had. And we still have moments where we're like, you know, we have moments like, well, I don't know. We trust [laughter] that team. They like they deliver really good things, but should it take this long? You know, I don't I believe what they're telling us, but I kind of want to see see more progress.

So, I reckon what they'll probably do like a really good dev manager who wants to screw someone, they won't give you metrics you can measure them against. Yeah,

they will give you road maps that are fluffy and keep moving stuff around.

Like they won't be reporting velocity to you. They won't be telling you how many, you know,

what the code quality is like and you might not know to ask.

You would not be expected to know to ask.

Yeah.

Then you you don't know what you don't know. You don't know the right questions to ask. And we still are deficient in in that side of it. And I guess again this is my optimism. I really have high faith in in the people that we've got working for us now. But we went through a lot of duds. When I look at the progress and why things are slow, the feedback that we get from the guy primarily, the main guy that works with us is sort of sort of hard to swallow pills, which is you guys keep making things more complicated. You know, we're doing this thing and it turns into this thing. Now, that's sort of unavoidable because No, but what it is is that a good dev manager is also good at managing scope.

Yeah.

So, he'd be the guy that' be like, "Chris, I can do that for you, but it's one extra four weeks."

Yeah.

It's an extra eight grand. Tell me, is it worth it?

Yeah.

The other thing that I'd say is, look, I'm a fantastic car driver. I'm sure you are. It's all right. I'm an amazing car driver.

I'm a terrible car driver. I'm

I'm fantastic, but I still buy insurance.

Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Because no great no matter how great I am.

I still always buy the conflict of insurance.

No, totally. And it was probably there's probably a key error that we that we made early on and and it's still one that needs to be solved to be fair. M

um I think I I still think we're going to pull it off,

but when we when we do, we're going to look back and it and we'll go

it just took a bit longer harder, more expensive and and more painful than it needed to be.

The actual cost will be not so much that I reckon the cost will be that your mind space will be in that.

Yeah. The that it won't So I'll give you an analogy. I was talking to a guy um he runs a clinical trials company and we're chatting about AI totally up himself if he ever listens. You know who you are. Um, and he was telling me how great AI is for coaching, right? And he was like, you know, we're doing transfer pricing, so I learned all about it with AI over the weekend. And I met with KPMG. And at the end end of that, KPMG said to me, oh, you actually don't need our advice. You're actually an expert.

And I'm thinking to myself, you dumbass. You need to be an expert in running clinical trials. You don't need to be an expert in transfer pricing.

Outsource that to KPMG

and don't let that occupy in your mind space.

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz every mind CPU cycle you have in your brain, I think for you it's got to be how do you grow this business? How do you get client market fit? How do you do that stuff that Chris Miller is an expert at?

Yeah, you are absolutely spot on and and you sort of said it when you led into that story. the cost will be like to me there's a real fatigue sort of cost and it's drain like it's draining like there's a burnout risk that you know it'll it'll be it will have taken longer and it would have cost more money but actually the the real cost in that was the yeah the [ __ ] mental drain and bandwidth that it that has

So is the real problem to solve not about why can I help others raise and not raise myself

because we kind of know why you're not raising because it's just not the right time is that the real problem to solve Yeah, probably not then. I guess

what what would be the right problem? Let me cross that one out. I think the right the right problem for me to solve is is, you know, how can I get from where I am now to to to, you know, properly being deployed at the thing that requires my attention come to life?

Oh, okay. So, how do you how do you reorganize your time?

Yeah. or or probably like how do I you know un untangle myself from the things that I do spend most of my time on and actually

Yeah. How do you untangle yourself? Yeah.

So like there's a there's an association to that to money and that's why maybe I constantly come back to the I need to raise money. What I'm actually saying is I need to create the ability for me to just be this full time. Yeah.

Well, I don't know if money equals I'll just pay myself a salary out of out of that business and then I can

spend all my time

making it work.

But at the moment

I don't. So all my bandwidth goes towards the the thing that I need to do to to you know secure my income.

And and the other part is like the real work right now in Taylor sounds like it's stuff that isn't your isn't your thing.

Yeah.

It's the technical build side of things. Totally. which even if you had 100% of your time, you actually could not do that super well.

Yeah. No, I mean I I couldn't. It's not my It's definitely not my wheelhouse, the detail of it, but I but I'm a really valuable contributor in the

No doubt

in the the vision.

Well, no, it's a context like what does this mean for a stratus like like the people building

this stuff,

you know, like they're connecting for the data from property IQ, you know, like they they've got to like they don't understand. But the terminology to use is you you'd be like a really good domain expert.

Yeah. Subject matter expert on the on the

on the on the user flow

on the user and the people that you know like

the customers that we're trying to get at. You know what happen like what happens when a unit sells? Well, I'll tell you what happens to Pexar and like is there an opportunity for us to be getting the data from Pexar and we're getting instantly rather than waiting two weeks for the strata manager to get the notice from the from the solicitor. So that stuff is all contextual stuff that that I am able to to add value in. But that's that is a collaboration piece that then I need to be able to feed to like others. Yeah. Okay. Now I'm now I'm going to use that and build the

the technical components that that make use of that insight.

So one thing that I found is where I've made the most money and done the best stuff in my career is when I've only done the stuff I'm good at that I have this insane advantage. A simple example, right? So, we get a housekeeper 5 days a week. We have someone that cooks for us 5 days a week because I could totally do the laundry, but I'm [ __ ] at it. We're kindred spirits, man.

That's where I want to get my life. I've occasionally gotten myself there, then I [ __ ] it up by letting go of a big salary and, you know, like get like I'm totally with you. Like, I don't want to be a tech person. And I want to be able to influence the direction that it goes by by making by adding my insight into the customer. But let me tell you, every every new locker that we deploy into a building and the and the client gives us 25 $30,000 and then I get that on an asset finance lease with NAB and the and the rental of the locker. Amazing. Amazing model.

Pays off

the asset finance. So I just get that money up in in the bank. Every one of those deals that I do fills our bank account.

I'm great at dealing with developers. Why aren't I spending every single day out there getting a parcel locker into into a new developer?

I tell you the the cost of it. So, if you told me there was a guy that ran a business from, you know, zero to 14,000 laws worth an insane amount of money growing 80 employees in a decade, I'd say I reckon the next time he starts from scratch, he'll do that in a third of the time.

Yeah. cuz he would have learned a 100,000 little mistakes that he made, right?

And it' be so much better.

Yeah.

But I wonder if I see the but I wonder that's if is that why you're 4 years in or two years in full-time kind of thing and you haven't had that same replication of success straight away

cuz that advantage at the start of the game you play to your strength.

Yeah.

Relationships, sales. I know.

Win deals. Win deals. Win deals.

Win deals.

Yeah. Now there's there are deals to win, but you're just not winning them. You're doing the other stuff.

Yeah. Well,

yeah. I'm I'm

Because there's definitely deals to be won, right? There's definitely a deal.

There's heaps of deals to be won. I'm not really even doing all that much of the other stuff. Like, I'm giving it the scraps that I' that I've got. Like, if I woke up tomorrow and I said,

you know, all I need to do, all I'm doing now is knocking on doors for developers or committees and I'm and I'm saying, are you planning to put a locker in this development? Yes. Great, let's talk.

But if you have a constraint that you can't allocate more time than you're allocating, imagine if all the five attempts on your time that you could allocate the next week was just on doing the deals.

Yeah.

And you had Candace plus maybe had someone else helping her just doing all the other stuff.

Yeah.

And you'd be called to a meeting once a week with the domain expertise.

This is how it should work. This should work. This should work. This should work.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's a good point. I reckon if that happened the time to success would be much shorter.

Yeah. What's your takeaway from today? I don't know where to start. There's there's there actually are some pretty good key sort of insights and things that I think I can I can go and focus on. Like I'm Yeah, I I think maybe I've overthink the money side of it a little bit too much. And it's actually really drilled down further and further. It's actually about the freedom to spend the time to make this thing to make this thing work

to make it come together.

Yeah. Perfect. Awesome. So, last thing to wrap up. So, one thing we ask all of our guests is what's something you've always known to be true that later on you found out actually wasn't.

Yeah. Good question. I've got two that come to mind. Then one's one's professional or in business and the other one the other one's more personal. But the business one is, you know, I've always had this I've always thought that attitude was the most important thing. You know, you got the right attitude sort of everything will come together.

I I I don't think that anymore, particularly as I've grown teams that you need capability, you need attitude and capabilities. Those two things have to come together. So yeah, that's that's the business lens. But personally, I always knew that I just was not interested in becoming a parent. And my life was totally full um without having kids. And man, I'm so glad to say that I found that that was completely wrong.

Oh, fantastic.

The most telling you why it might be completely wrong for you. I reckon it happened at a time that you had a lot more free time.

I think so. Yeah. The more time you spend, the more you like them.

Yeah. It was an awesome first year of being a parent to be honest that it's it's really

Yeah, it's it's reframed a a lot of my life to be honest. So, it's been it's been great.

Fantastic. Thanks for joining us, Chris.

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for listening. I hope [music] you enjoyed it. If you do want to be a guest, make sure you hit me up and do follow me on socials and make [music] sure you check out future episodes.