Unlocking Business Podcast

Steve started E-Maintain two years ago with zero residential experience. He is still on the tools, has three staff, and is building something the right way without burning through a Google ads budget to do it.

Kane and Steve cover the real story of starting a small electrical business in Perth with no residential background and figuring it out on the fly. They get into hiring your first apprentice vs your first sparky and why most people get that wrong, how to build consistent work through property managers and commercial relationships instead of chasing leads, why a VA might be your best early hire, and how to get the phones ringing without blowing your budget on advertising.

If you are in the first few years of running a trade business and trying to figure out how to get consistent work without it costing you everything, this one is for you.

Most trade business owners think hiring more people will fix their problems. It does not. It exposes them. And the cost of getting it wrong is bigger than most realise.

Kane Tyler Smith and Anthony Lawlor from Nimbus Tech break down what actually happens when a trade business grows without the right processes and structure in place. This is a conversation about the chaos phase of scaling, why profit drops as revenue grows, and what needs to be sorted before you even think about hiring your next person.

If your business feels like it runs through you and only you, this episode is why.

Anthony Lawlor is the owner of Nimbus Tech, a WA-based IT services and consulting business supporting trade and service companies with systems, infrastructure, and technology.

Kane Tyler Smith started Smartfix in 2018 with one ute and zero business training. It grew to 140 staff and $30 million before a near-miss that almost took everything.

In this episode, Kane and Aisha break down the real story behind building Smartfix from the ground up. How they handled Google reviews from day one, why staff retention was always a core value, what scaling too fast actually looks like from the inside, and why trade business coaching in Perth barely existed when they needed it most.

If you are running a trade business in Australia and want real talk from someone still in it, this is where to start.

Aisha Derrick is the Marketing and Brand Manager at Smartfix and co-founder of Hypotential. Her perspective comes from being inside real trade businesses and seeing firsthand the gap between technical skill and business capability, and what it actually takes to close it.

Kane Tyler Smith built Smartfix from one ute in 2018 to over $30 million a year and 130 staff. What most people never saw was how messy that actually was.

This is the intro episode of Unlocking Business: Hypotential. Kane breaks down who he is, why he built Hypotential, and the gap he kept seeing in the trade industry. Most tradies are excellent at their trade. Nobody teaches them how to run a business. That is what this podcast is here to fix. Real conversations, real operators, real situations from inside a trade business.

If your business relies on you too much, things feel harder than they should, and the numbers are not adding up; this is where to start.

hypotential.com

Perth, Western Australia