From Startup Struggles to Scaling Success with Archie Whiting

0:00Welcome to IT Mastermind Talks, your access to insights and experiences from thought leaders in the IT services industry and those that support the industry. Our podcast features not only the seasoned professionals charting their start to exit journey, but also the key contributors who help ensure the success. We delve into the diverse challenges encountered within the IT services realm, encompassing both professional hurdles and personal obstacles. Join us. Be part of our growing community and engage in the conversation hosted by Ian Markram of Loading Growth.

0:36Hey, good day. Today I'm talking to Archie and a really really good friend of mine, a client of mine for about a year. he's got a great story from startup from software to bit of product and bit of services and the challenges around that. So it'll be awesome to hear from Archie today. Archer, would you just like to give yourself a bit of a introduction there,

0:58Yeah, Ian. Great. Thank thanks so much for having me. Looking forward to the chat. Yeah, so I'm the MD at Oxil. We've been in the industry, I guess, since 2012. Builders at heart, building out different businesses, solutions, e-commerce through to what we're doing now with Oxil. So, yeah, we've got IT services, consulting, and building out our own platform. been through a lot over the last yeah 10 12 years

1:24For sure. Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. So, we're going to just start off at the beginning how it all started and and a bit about your background and your journey. Okay. So, what what inspired you to actually start out initially Archie on on this journey to to where you are now? Yeah. So, at uni was thinking about different solutions problems. I was doing sport management if you like and thinking about lots of different things and I came up with an idea around an online auction site for sporting clubs and charities and one great piece of advice I got when I was tossing it around was Archie go away and do the work. Go and go and do the work to see if it's viable. Do the numbers and then that'll tell you whether you should pursue it. great bit of advice straight up and and from the back of doing a business plan I suppose back then was yeah I was lucky enough to get it get some funding and get some money and dive dive straight into it. so as a you know I was only 22 23 24 starting out as a as a founder it was certainly yeah like a a a big steep learning curve but it still got me got me to where I am today

2:31For sure. Well, let's just go and go a bit more into detail about some of those initial steps that you've taken to get to get you launched at the beginning of of that journey. Can you sort of just think back? I know sometimes it's quite hard to think back just some of the things so that when people listening to the podcast today or on YouTube, they can really resonate or understand where you've gone to get to this journey and and and how they how you launched yourself there. Bit more detail.

2:57Sure. Yeah. So I guess once we sort of was getting the concept together and getting the you know solving the problem getting that on paper I had to build a team. So started with building what the the team and the skill sets looked like from a from an overall governance perspective from the technical skills. So you know development teams marketing teams operations finance started to fill out my network as I you know didn't know I had the ideas but needed some help.

3:23But that's where we really started started building out the team. that was that was the first bit and then it was sort of seeking vendors to bring the I guess the idea to life in terms of something tangible and looking back that's something that you know if I had my time again I I would have probably seek to get a technical founder alongside I think would have helped accelerate. So that would be one thing for startups out there if they're looking to get get into it is think about whether they want to buy I guess that technical capability or or bring it into their team as a as a co-founder from the get- go and I think would give them you a little bit of a leg up that we didn't pursue at the time. But nonetheless, it wasn't a huge barrier. We still started pretty lean to get something up that was that we could start engaging with. and our I guess a focus on champion customers at the time and building it alongside them and that's definitely a methodology that holds me in goodstead today and and a real focus. So we just went to work and and this model was working with sporting clubs and charities. So we had to just get out and start promoting that how we can help them and how this platform was going to help them and preeding it. So we had customers ready to go once we we launched awesome friendlies to test and learn and try and get into it. So and then we yeah started building it.

4:37Brilliant. Brilliant. So you would have learned a lot of lessons going through that you know work things working things not working you know and pivoting to get you know to get that success that you had initially. Can you sort of mention sort of any of the any of the things that you learned out of that the pivoting part you know? Yeah particularly around you know looking at your runway and your cash burn how to how to manage that is is really difficult at the start because you've got you can see it that you need to spend money to to get key people in there. So how you how you managed that was a was a real challenge and overcoming that and looking for funding and looking for additional funding verse what we did was going the amount of money we were going to have to raise for that first business was significant can we pivot can we adapt can we adapt with what we've got and jump into new opportunities where the numbers may have made a bit more sense so that was certainly a challenge and I think the challenge is is getting money in managing your cash flow you know you want to have key people everywhere but who are the core people and how far you and stretch it. So that thinking back it's a fair while ago from those early early days we really tried to bootstrap it and be as resourceful as we can and yeah it's a it's a real challenge I think that side that side of it and that's something that stands out.

5:52The innovative side of it and having a development road map and coming up with ideas you think are going to be really beneficial to your customers came more naturally to to us and our team. yeah but that was it was more around yeah look managing the the need for cash I suppose. For sure. For sure. How did you get your first sort of client? Can you sort of describe, you know, the steps and the way you went around getting your first client? Because that's normally the thing that holds people back from starting out is, you know, they don't have the cash or they need a client to get going with an idea or a product idea in your situation. How do you get your first client? You just sort of talk through that. Yeah, I I probably I briefly mentioned it and something that is a philosophy is really engaging your potential your future customer early and you really want to hold on to your IP cuz you're worried about potentially someone taking your idea or running away or or what that might look like. It's not fully developed. But trying to work with champions or people that think it's a great idea would adopt it, get commitments from them almost as you're building it is something that we really focus on and continue to focus on. Now, if we've got a new product we're looking to take to market, it's is this a good market fit? Is this a vertical that can scale? Yes. No. Have we got some people that are happy to jump into it, test it, build it alongside? So, that's how we got our first customers was working with people that are willing to I give something a go that's not perfect.

7:11Yeah. Great. Great. and build it with with them is is awesome, you know, from a cash flow perspective as well, but also to verify your idea of, you know, the actual product itself, you know, validate it as you as you move through. You know, normally the biggest challenge an early stage business is that first client and and then its cash flow. Were there any sort of other challenges at early stage for you besides those

7:34Yeah, I think with the the business model was definitely a challenge that we remember. So giving it away or making it as you know we we were really successful of getting people onto the platform for free to trial it but without that financial commitment they don't use it as well as you can. So that was something that we really had to balance like great we've got we're getting people on board it's all happening it's all moving in the right direction but our numbers from a a revenue perspective weren't strong. So, and then were they where could we build case studies out of our early adopters because they were on there triing it for free? Probably didn't eventuate like we we would hope. So, that was something that you know lesson learned around getting early adopters but making sure that you can get them to use it to their full potential so you can really leverage those early adopters as well.

8:20Yeah, it's it's it is the trick you know to get someone that's actually going to use the product but you know double down and use it properly so that you actually get the feedback from them. you know it is the because as you say nothing is for anything for free is never really gets used properly and that's that is the challenge you know so just just going back through the the background of the journey there you what did you name your company up front and has it changed and and what's happened with that

8:44Yeah for sure it did as said that idea was around you know helping sporting clubs and charities so we were club solutions Australia and the business was club bits yeah online auction site for sporting clubs and char I still think it's it's got some legs in terms of what idea with a with a different angle to it. But from there you know we did quite well but not well enough that we could see that we were going to run out of money so had to pivot. and from there the success of it I guess launched Oxil which is what we're doing now and Oxil means to you know in that philosophy to come to aid or help in Latin. So it's a play on sort of our mission that was behind club solutions Australia if you like but building out these collective services for businesses and and organizations was where we pivoted into and we also then launched our IT services side at the same time.

9:30You know raising money is really hard. So this made sense from an IT consulting perspective, from a service perspective that that became our revenue generator and then from there we could invest that into our products to keep our I guess SAS platform going to keep our startup or or where we think we can go really big as a company going but it came a nice way to supplement our cash flow.

9:51Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. And normally it's the other way around. So a lot of you know in the Loading Growth world that I work as a coach a lot of the clients start off as IT services because they get the client from their previous engagements as a consultant. You know three years ago they would have worked at this company and then they bring in you know they go back to a company and they you know upsell their skills as a new entity. and then they get the work and then after four or five clients and some revenue then they go oh you know this consulting gig is actually quite hard. how how about building a product and we can actually make some you know monthly retainers out of that product or a arr whatever it is you you actually came around the other way around which is quite interesting but it's the same thing at the end of the day you got to have that revenue that cash flow coming through so you can carry on developing your software products and your vision around what you want to do any challenges around that

10:44Yeah look I think you know that whichever way you go there's challenges both ways whether you've been in industry for a I mean, you're probably a bit more experienced and you've got more connections and you might be able to get things going versus what I did when you just jump into it and you got really no idea what you're doing, but you you've you haven't got a lot of life risks I guess attached to it, you know, like not married, no kids, no dependence, just like have a go. So, but I think as you as I've got older, those things have now changed my sort of outlook and of how you look at it. But no, I think I think they're both ways to go in terms of I guess challenges as such. One challenge that we've found is building things from an IT services perspective that doesn't actually help our core business. So whilst it generates revenue, it takes up bandwidth of devs, developers of people coming up with great ideas and trying your best to execute them. It may be moving away from where our core focus was. And that's something that's really we've had to realign lots around that of going great this is making us money it's keeping the lights on really critical you run out of money you haven't got a business but it can become a too big a distraction so it's really balancing that up is something

11:57That we do focus on and and I guess further to that it's I like to think there's a bit of a curtain in terms of your short-term focus and objectives and your long-term vision and where you're heading and it's really easy to get caught in either side too for too long if you're just building short-term making money. It's not pushing towards your vision versus if you're stuck or thinking about that, you know, your long-term play, you lose sight of actually making money or making, you know, keeping things moving. So, getting that balance right is a real is a is a real challenge with this model. Yeah. Look, you know, the thing with the consulting is you you're solving someone's problems and and that takes energy. That takes focus and energy to actually do that. And you know that energy is limited as a as a co-founder like you and you got to protect that energy otherwise you can't carry on build building your products and developing your product. So that's where the that's where the the challenge is and sometimes the consultancy firms actually split up into separate businesses and they actually have a product business and then they fund that product business into a separate business because of just that. So yeah, it's been interesting to see your journey from the sidelines and and it's positive and it's working and I think it's, you know, everyone's got a different rhythm and a different cycle to to how they work and operate. and and for you it's it's working. Could you talk a bit about your your team? You know, we we spoke, you know, a couple of weeks ago about you going to Vietnam to talk to your team and use that team to, you know, build the relationships better and how they work with you remotely because I think that's a real asset. you can you can dev fast. You can you know bring in new technology really quickly and you can do it at an

13:29Affordable price. Can you just talk about how that started that that dev team and and how you work with it and where where you are with that at the Yeah, sure. Yeah. So across the journey had onshore and offshore teams, you know, built out and a lot of it started really about trying to protect a runway and and how much money and and having really good people on shore versus getting five potentially offshore became a real consideration for us going can we do this? And we actually had which I was fortunate a Vietnamese head developer who built our platform to start with who set us up who who before moving on said I think you can really do this offshore. You should have a look at it. So that that started us out to go, right, if we're going to build this out offshore, where are we going to go? Vietnam made sense for us given the connections and the relationships. And what I've liked about it is the absolute flexibility where you can have full-time, part-time, contractors, freelancers that you can based on the project or what we're looking to do, we can we can build teams together that can help I guess anyone on a budget as well. So you know, we can be agile for there. So we can scale up and scale down. And that being offshore has really helped us with that. When I've needed people because we've got lots of, you know, we're looking to build and build quick, we can throw resources on it versus scaling down like in a pandemic, you know, that where that really hurt if you've got full-time people rather than letting them go. I could I could scale scale down. So that's worked worked for us and and working working.

14:57I think some of the challenges particularly though where people get stuck is around really good process and communication. you know, it all starts there. So, having people on the ground for us that speak really good English that can interpret exactly what we're trying to do beyond just a list, they can challenge the business logic to a certain degree. They fully understand what you're trying to do, then it's transferred to the development teams time to develop those those processes. But absolutely critical for for

15:24Yeah. Yeah. I think it's it's great. You're doing a really good job. You went out to see them as well to build that relationship further. You spend time with them and and I think that's the result. A lot of people that try have offro team want to throw it over the fence and and I think that's where things fall over because a lot of people have tried to do what you've done Archie, but you've actually got you've cracked it and you've cracked the code and you've worked it out and you put the effort in there and you communicate really really well. So, you know, that's that's the things that actually make it work. So, well done on that and I think it's a great asset to your business. So, keep it up.

15:57Thanks. And yeah, like getting over there, that relationship piece can't be Yeah. That when they see you and you connect with them and went and saw their families and where they live and where their kids go to to kinder and you know, I was the star attraction of kindergarten. The kids are all running up to me and it just meant a lot to them seeing you actually come over that. You're not just getting them on to the next feature. you know you your real people automatically seen that was able to do some really good work with them from a strategy perspective where they see the future where they see technology going what were we trying to execute right now how can we improve but also that relationship piece has just automatically seen an uptick in communication back their way and and how they're working so yeah really successful trip and I'll yeah definitely be back for for just to do those those exact exercises

16:44Yeah it's you know people want to work with people at the end of the Okay. And and it's you know you are providing they are providing a service as a as a del dev team to you. So you got to really treat them as part of the family and be involved with them and understand them and because they are humans as well. You know they have ups and downs and and you if you know if you got someone in the office near you you can actually see that happening. When you got a team that's remote it's very hard. So it's good that you actually do that. So awesome for that. And just before you move on, something I'm really proud of with that is that, you know, we've been working with them now for seven years and kept the core team together for seven years. is pretty rare to be able to to do that and build that out with them. So, you know, it's definitely working. Definitely the model that we're but it's taken taken a lot of refinement, but yeah, we're really proud of that.

17:30Yeah, it's you know, I was just in Philippines on on Saturday just to do that with one of my other clients. He's hired six people there in the last year and we've helped him hire the team and and worked with his team to actually develop that team further and further and he's really commented a few times this week how much better it's worked by by being over there and working with him for a whole day, you know, just one day it it impacted it. So, yeah, I can't I can't I can't speak highly of enough of it to actually go out and do that. Let's go back to sort of the pivotal moment when we were working together back in November and we talked a bit about the focus on FarmMate your product your number one product you got out there it's you passionate about it which I really like it's solving something can you just talk about the product and and then how how you ended up really putting doubling down on it and why can you just talk a bit about that as well

18:25Yeah sure you know our SAS platform that we're building end to end FarmMate is a worker welfare where riskmanagement compliance solutions working with our champions if you like to deliver content differently to palm workers and Pacific workers that are coming into the country is just a it's a massive problem that these employees or labor hire companies are dealing with just making sure they understand everything from work work expectations to what they got to do on on site English as a second language so far mate fit perfectly into an app utility getting an app in these workers hands where you can communicate to them visually simply to actually move move the needle that way in a vertical I suppose where we go yeah from a from a market size perspective that there's there's lots of them we can really make an impact so fit fit really nicely with our mission of helping and helping businesses but also helping the workers on the ground yeah so far mate is I guess our flagship brand or app that we're really looking to push and yeah like we when we're building these things we're always a little bit stuck in in an in a market or in a labor high industry where they haven't been the most proactive adopting technology. So getting change management

19:36Right, but just building proof points and communicating it in the right way, showing it actually working on the ground, having employers say that they've reduced their their rate of incidence by 20% since using the product. Those sorts of things are really starting to see some some some get us some momentum and some real success. that's what that does and it fits into our model of going we want to work with employers to work forces. So we can see that farm mates are real focus but we've got some other opportunities as well with that with our model if you like that we're looking to scale.

20:10Brilliant. Look it's a great product. I've seen it and I've seen the pictures that you done to to those potential clients and it's it's such a good story around it. So if anyone's listening to this, please have a look at it and and I know Archie's always looking for feedback so reach out to him if need be. Yeah. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. So, yeah, from an employer's perspective, the the risk management compliance piece is huge and it's only growing. So, being able to digitize that plug and play a solution that we can work with you to do to look after your team, look after your HR teams as well that are really working hard to manually deliver a lot of this stuff. We can work with you to I guess transform that piece, give some time back, cover your butt.

20:48Sure. So the challenge you have in that area is around also I see when we when we're talking is is some of these sort of farmers they they don't have the time that they under the pump themselves they're not you know cutting edge there's a few challenges can you just talk a bit about that those challenges and how you're trying to overcome those challenges as well

21:08Yeah so you know there if if we look at horiculture for example where a lot of the palm workers primary primarily come in they've got light admin teams that be they'd be multi-million dollar businesses because they've got mandarins and bananas and all like huge farms that but they're on the ground, they're in the office, they're on the ground, they're helping the workers, they're making the business run. So, what ends up happening is they've got a lean or really light HR team. So, they're overworked and stressed. But then adopting systems seems difficult because they just they're just flat out doing job to job to jobs. it creates both you know a challenge getting in but also opportunity where if we work with we can really show them how we can lighten the load lighten the load through I guess moving them through from manual systems face to face briefings without anything documented of what the power of data can do for them automating automating process engaging the works which is great data that they realize that this actually is going to save them a hell of a lot of time when it comes to an audit perspective but yeah they're certainly doing a lot they're doing a lot with these workers and and their their admin teams are doing a lot.

22:11Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. You know, you're solving multiple problems there and and I think that's the the opportunity to to to sort of change a bit of an industry, help an industry a lot with that one application. It's brilliant. Brilliant. So, just to move on back onto the the services side, Archie, because as you said up front, you've you started out building products and then you got the services team to help build the products, your own products, and you got a whole lot of ideas of new products coming out, but I won't let you know that's probably for another podcast at some stage later. but I know that you've got other products coming out and you're using that team to build those products and they're getting really really honed in on on solving some of those those issues. Can you just talk about the services that you do potentially for other clients as well?

22:54Yeah, sure. I guess being a full stack SAS solution where you know end to end in our own products, it's given us the capability to be able to provide that service to others or or parts of it. So yeah, we really build out where others have seen our technology and gone, can you help us with building something similar for us or a different platform whether that's an LMS or or yeah, different different platforms like that. So it sort of developed from there having already have the skills that we're utilizing to then easily pivot them into projects where they work and yeah so we've picked up lots of different things in from e-commerce from the early days through to yeah building out on AWS which is where we we said we specialize and then different front end and apps and different technologies depending on what they need and it's always been something that it's it has we've made sure it's a secondary focus for us so we've got our focus on our core business, but it's certainly starting to to grow over the last few years as the demand for people wanting I guess to leverage offshore tanks as well as go through an Australian company.

23:59Yeah, look, they need you know that's that is a challenge. I talk about this all the time is with offshore team you need the strategic thinking on this side and the design and everything else and that is because those people in offshore world don't understand what is really the problem you're really solving. they're not close enough to the client and that is so relevant when you go overseas and you work in KL for a week or two like I've done in the in the year already in Indonesia or Philippines the people that you're working with and the business owners there that are helping with you know BO type of services they do not understand really the problem you're trying to solve here because they never seen that problem in action and and they can't really understand it. So you need someone locally or a team locally to design it, sense check it, and then hand it over to a team to develop it. And and I think that's the the magic that you you're

24:47Yeah, I think I think for me yeah, even a lot of people with great ideas haven't fully developed everything that may come into it. And there's a real power in if you've got a good idea, let's throw it up on the board. Let's mind map it, work on all the inputs where what what are all the related things that need to happen of just yep, you've got this one idea, but what else can be plugged in or added to it? and really fleshing out the full solution getting a really clear set of requirements for you know from end to end if you can I can work with someone at that level it's quite powerful and then it's documenting that in a way that an offshore team can then realize understand what they've actually got to build how to execute it and then you've got your systems and processes in to do that so it does work well I I do agree I do agree if you just package it up and send it to an offshore team without someone I guess in in between like us or even in my case our team and then another layer of project managers that speak amazing English and have got some real smarts about them.

25:46Yeah, it's can be really really challenging and and we have picked up a lot of work where people have just got into a whole their offshore team's gone dark. They you know don't know where it's at and try and help them that that way. But if you get it right at the start, you get some really good Sure. On the services side, who's your sort of ideal client? Just talking about that. Let's, you know, can you drill down into what who you think your ideal client would be? I know it's, you know, it's not always the same, but if you had to talk about your ideal client in the services side.

26:13Yeah. And it's been good working with you and we talked about this earlier. I looking back on it, I will have just said absolutely everyone, anyone who needs something built because it made money. So, but now we're looking to specialize much more and aligning to build products and services for others that are without our team's capability and feeding into our development stack if you like. So, that would be AWS and still SAS, it's end to end. So, full stack we can do. So anyone that's looking to build out on on AWS as their core I guess their core platform and then if they're a SAS business or an app looking to be in the app space which we are native apps any sort of I guess app that they're looking to to build and develop that's where we specialize and we're going to really look to focus in more and more in that space particularly as AWS are releasing more and more in the AI their models that are available that businesses can could utilize but It's really hard to do if you just went on there now. You can't do it. I think we can we can really specialize in that space. So, yeah, if anyone's looking for some services in in I guess cloud, SAS, full stack apps, that's where we're specializing.

27:22Great. And I say if you stay focused that way, you'll get the right results as well for the customers as well. and and because you got the team behind it and I always find when people try and grab something else just outside their comfort zone in the services world or in the development world and they don't really get that type of outcome for the client you know is good and then that margin erodess and it's a bit of a frustration so sometimes stay to stay to your focus core is what I believe you

27:51Yeah and and and yeah there's some traps there's some traps even with some offshore teams that can say can can you do this? yeah, yeah, we can we can do it. We can do it. And they kind of figure it out as they go and you don't it ends up being more costly or or takes time. Yeah. Versus having really defined roles, skill sets that we can plug and tap into and know they're going to do a great job is the is the key

28:13For sure. And that's, you know, being there for seven years, you knowing the people and you've actually understood their capability. You know exactly what you can deliver and you can't deliver. And that's the important thing, you know, that's the that's that that is the amazing thing. So well done on that. Yeah. And it's ever evolving though. You're only as good as the people. So if we're building our own team, contracting our own, you know, Oxil teams over there, plus using other let's say development houses and things over there, their people can can go up and down as well. So where they may have been strong contracting a team previously may have lost people. So you've got to be really careful of how you how you how you manage that to make sure you

28:49Get great outcomes. And that's something that we've learned over the seven years, you know. Yeah. You learn it. you learn it. Yeah, definitely. It's all about the people. It's all about the people, you know. It doesn't matter if it's a product business or a services business, it comes down to people. can you think through I mean, you've had a lot of successes, I know, because I've been working with you for a while. Can you just think about one success story on the services side that made had an impact on their you know, on their business that you developed for someone or did something?

29:16Yeah. Yeah. I know we we worked with you know whether I'll name the I won't name the company but maybe a very large labor hire company this separate to to what we're doing with FarmMate where they were doing manual signups and registrations for all their labor labor hire workforce. So they engaged us to digitize that program where they were it went from manual process to onboarding 50,000 workers through the app. It was they captured 160 160,000 documents. So PDFs, so everything from passports to photo ID, all these sort of you know requirements when you need to build out a profile on on a worker that they might have been deploying them. They were doing all that manual. So people would drop off their pay slips. they would email them in or post them in and then they would have to work out what their deductions and things were from a from a labor host to be able to digitize that process from from end to end and even allow the staff to to be able to review these deductions, work out whether it classified or not from them then there and then deliver it back down to the work and say yes it's been approved you're going to get paid. Yeah, it was a really successful really is just one one example of I guess digitizing a paperbased process but a big one.

30:31Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Great, great success story. we're going to move on to the challenges. Now, everyone as a founder has challenges and I want to ask you what's your sort of the biggest challenge you think you've had to date and it could be around, you know, product delivery or sales, marketing. It could be something around staff, anything sort of that you think has been the biggest challenge you've ever had? Yeah, I the biggest challenges we have ever had has definitely been from a founders's perspective of going we're going to run out of money. If we continue to go on this path, we are going to die. What what do we what do we do about it? And like having a strong team around you helps and you you go to work on that problem. But I think that's something that you get to a real flash point where you go well we either give up and say that was too hard or you go to go to work on it. So, we've definitely I think every every founder will will relate to to that of looking at their cash burn and going how what are we going to do about it? How are we going to get around it? And I remember some of those some of those times not that's happened often but in the early days particularly going what are we going to do? And a real strength and I think of us at my mine and the team, you know, my management team and my board and my investors is gone. Yeah. No, there's always a way to solve it if you're kind of got the determination to to keep going. Let's go. Let's let's find a way.

31:55Yeah. So, that's to me comes down to a really is some of the tougher times as a as a founder. As a founder. Yeah. Yeah. can you just talk a bit about your you know you you you obviously you know building products and and they're going to market and you have applied for grants in the past. Can you just give us like a 20 seconds or 30 seconds on applying for grants?

32:15R&D or grants in Yeah. R&D R&D grants. Yeah. So R&D tax incentive is is a really good one if you're building your own products is is a way that you can get some relief from from the government. You get a fair bit. I think it's 42 and a half cents of the dollar back for development services. there's some rules and regulations you need to go through. so if you are building your own stuff, I would highly recommend having a look at that and feel free to reach out to me. There's some experts out there that that's all you do. A lot of accountants do that as well, but there's some rules that you need to to be able to get through, but that's something that I think all startup businesses should be doing. for

32:52Yeah, for sure. is is that really helps helps your your cash flow and you can think about whether you have onshore resources there or offshore resources and some of the things you can and can't claim. the other things out there. There's there's programs like Civic Labs or Startup Victoria where Vic, but startup bodies around that will do challenges where you might get 10 or 15 20 grand to do a proof of concept which is great because you can spin something up, get something developed and then take that to market. And doing that process led us to for us work safe Victoria and doing a big pilot on FarmMate with alongside work safe Victoria was fantastic exposure and a way to continue our moment momentum. So that's something else that you could look at as well as there's other matching grants out there that that we've we've considered as well along the journey.

33:40Sure. Great. Can you just talk a bit about investors and obviously you know cash when you're developing products up front because you're product first base rather than services. So you've gone out to get some investors. Can you talk a bit about that for like you know a minute or two? How how did you go out and get investors and how did you pitch them and all those things? Yeah. again great experience going going through going into the Shark Tank if you like it in certain degrees across the way but it really start again from being able to put your what your business is, what you're doing, what problem you're solving, getting a really good pitch deck together. So I worked with some my team that have done some raising before around being able to, you know, articulate what you're doing and why it's different and how you can scale it and getting your numbers right behind it. So again, I came back to almost the business plan I I spoke about at the start with your first idea. Going to raise money, you need to be really organized and the lens from selling to your customers versus pitching to people who should invest in your business is different is is different as well.

34:38Different language, different approach. So getting that right. So what we did Yeah. So whether it's an IM or just a pitch deck to be able to then go and then it's sort of going through the channels that are available whether it's Melbourne Angels, Sydney Angels, these sorts of groups are quite good and quite friendly and quite open to hearing your idea when you're ready as well as you know the VCs of the world you know your blackbirds of the world that or your square peg these ones that are looking to develop the next unicorn are there but depends on your business and your appetite for working with some of those. What we did was try and raise just enough money to protect our equity I suppose to continue to develop our platform, get as much traction as possible before we look to I guess go and scale to the next level. So it's how much do you need to raise at each level I guess to achieve your goals to get market traction that'll make you more attractive for more investment. So we worked with I guess more friendly people in the the angel network, friends or family, people that are connected to us, to our business, we like the idea, got some money, let's go, let's build it together. So that's how we did it. I know sitting in at an AWS conference last week that the venture capital guys were there and they were just talking about, you know, one of the key things of thinking global from the start. So do you build it here in Australia, get your traction and then look to scale it offshore and the problems that can happen with that versus going thinking global from day one and Canva of the world or Atlassian, but there's there's a fair few different

36:10Ways to to do it depending on your type of business. So yeah, if that answers your question. Yeah, good. Perfect. Technology technology is changing. you know, AI, everyone's talking about that at the moment, but can you just talk a bit about, you know, you went to the AWS event last week, you sent me an email when you get on the plane and how, you know, pumped you were for some great ideas obviously coming from the event, but could you talk a bit about, you know, where is that technology stack currently and where you think it's going and in reality because you know what these big tech vendors are, they they're always trying to sell a vision that's not there yet, but they want you to be deployed on that on that stack. Can you just talk a bit about that innovation and where you going with the business around that and a bit more around anything? I think it's come obviously it's come an enormous way in 12 in the last 12 18 18 months from where it started and I look at a platform like let's let's AWS bedrock for example we're still starting to work our way with what's possible but 12 months ago there was only a couple of models in there that you could use agents weren't developed starting to do some image generation to now their capability is much much stronger so being able to use their platform to I guess implement things like image generation video generation being able to prompt to to do that. you know, yeah, the AI agents looking at developing them, but then also orchestration, so getting them to do a lot of the grunt work for you behind the scenes. So, there's lots there's there's certainly lots happening. I think as you said, it's come a long way, but by the time I think we look at the end of 2026, let's say go another 12 months, it's there's going to

37:43Be it's going to be better and better again. So, what we're looking at and what AWS we're sort of promoting as well is automation versus augmentation. So having agents or robots do a lot of the grant work with a human layer of checks and balances, making sure that it's it's correct and then almost being able to communicate that personto person and then getting an an agent to do a lot of the data capture, the analytics to be able to spin up insights, etc. So augmentation is still critical at this juncture, I think. so not relying 100% on on on just AI,

38:17But it's certainly coming. So what we're looking at is future proofing ourselves. So we're SAS, we're a SAS stack. There's going to be AI native businesses that will be starting now where you just build on top of a large language model and and build out your whole service that way. Versus for us, we're going to be looking to keep our keep our stack if you like, but then plug in all these AI tools to enhance our product, our app. So what that looks like practically for us is having multilingual chat bots that can talk to workers that can help them solve their problems inside the app and then automatically send those problems to their employer so they can help them with whatever their challenge is versus them logging a a request manually if you like using a contact us form. So there's it's pretty cool pretty cool what you can do now and then looking at you know the end of 2026 I think we'll be coding just through like co-pilot so the world is still not quite there to be able to just do end to end coding right now there's still too many errors in in accuracy problems yeah so future proofing ourselves looking at being ready for let's say 2026 but also

39:21Developing as much as we possibly can now embedding as much AI as we can now to help our products further help our customers, etc. Great. Great. Look, it's a, you know, exciting area. I can't wait to, you know, get a $50,000 robot to come to my house and do do the things that no one else wants to do. It's coming. It's coming. For sure. For sure.

39:41It's coming. And I'll let you, you know, I'll let you be the managed services provider of that. So, you can just tap in and upgrade it when you need to because I don't even want to do that. You know what I mean? So, you can when it stops working. Yeah. You can just log in remotely. That's that's great. you know, a bit of the innovation. You know, it's a hard thing with with technology is is you got to keep upskilling yourself and and and putting the effort into learning about it. But I suppose if you're passionate about it, which you are, then you just do it naturally. And I think it's a core a core thing that you bring Archie to the to to that. So that's that's awesome. Where do you think you see, you know, yourself and and and the two businesses you have at the moment? You know, one is the FarmMate and one's ox. Where do you see that in the next year to two to three years? Have you got a vision for that? Where do you really see

40:26Yeah. Yeah, we've got a really clear, I guess, map of where we want to take FarmMate or the Oxil Oxil tech stack. There's there's no doubt we're looking to scale now that we feel like we've got through that MVP proof of concept stage, but we're ready to ready to scale, but we're looking to aggressively build the the SAS startup, you know, the product side. And the plan will to become more and more of a core core focus. We're still some supporting consulting activities. But that's where we're looking to go in the next three years is scale scale in Australia through agriculture and and related industries and then looking at that vertical I guess in other countries with the same problem that we're looking to tap and I think we'll look to move into there sooner rather than later. but we're really looking to to scale our product side first and foremost and that's our that's our core forward focus. And then yeah, but I think the the IT services side is an absolute requirement for us, keeping the lights on, keeping cash flow. so we're going to just look to I guess continue to specialize in that IT services space and be more and more specialists in there.

41:32Are probably the two objectives with both sides of the business. Yeah, you can do so much more now with the lean offshore team, but with the tools as well, you can actually deploy a lot quicker and faster for a another startup or another product. and that's the advantages you guys really bring to because you got that offro team. They been with you your while. They're highly skilled. You're in the right stack. It's really, really a good opportunity. I see that.

41:56Yeah. No doubt. And that's what I'm talking to my team about. It's like, how do we get things out? Spin it up faster. Get a demo version working quicker. There's ways of doing that now. And that can be for any whether you're a startup or an established business that's looking to develop your own product. Like get it up quicker, get it up quick. Doesn't necessarily need to be perfect straight away. I guess maybe that's the the the startup founder me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me It's like get it going guys, let's get it going and then improve improve alongside your customers. I think that that mindset or methodology does stack up and it's only going to get easier and easier to do that if you've got the right idea.

42:28Sure. For sure. Last question and then I know it's got to wrap up because you're hell of a business busy and I know you got a hard shut offs and I appreciate the time but what would you give someone that's aspiring to be sort of a IT builder product or a SAS company like yours? What would you you know what's advice you would give to them? Don't do it. No. No. no absolutely have a go like you know do the work. I would I would just say do the work. do the work because if you do the work at the start before you spend any money will give you confidence in the the idea or the plan and you really go to work on on that. So once you've done the work it'll give you the confidence to to decide whether you're going to do it and even if sometimes if the numbers don't make sense and you're passionate enough about it explore it to the end. Most people will say no it won't work. You don't always sit there and go no I think it if you're passionate enough it can it can work but the numbers do need to make sense. So I would suggest have a go. Yeah, do the work. Definitely do the work first and that will give you the confidence from there. talk to people about it. Like you can be too protective of your kind of ideas. I think it's pretty rare unless you're you're in maybe a big consulting firm and you're talking to your employer about your idea, probably wouldn't recommend that. But if you're talking to friends and throwing around ideas, like most people will say it's a bad idea.

43:39But do the work, talk about it, flush it out, get some people that can help you. Whether that, like we said, like get another a tech founder that can actually build the apps for you. Come talk to someone like me that can maybe get it up lean and then yeah, have a go. Have a Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay, I like it. Well, thanks so much for the time, Archie. I appreciate it. Keep up the good work and we'll chat later.

43:59Thanks, Dan. Thanks for your time. Thanks for joining us on IT Mastermind Talks. Don't miss out on our next episode. Hit the follow button and stay updated. Want to be our next podcast guest? Contact us and share your expertise with our audience. Visit for more information.