Startups, Innovation and Turning an Idea Into a Real Business | Isabelle Charter

[00:00] Cold open

Isabelle: We created this concept that will give you every single piece of information that you need to keep your plants alive.

Isabelle: Honestly, it's not necessarily true.

[00:09] Introduction

Kane: Hey, I'm Kane Tyler Smith, the founder and CEO of Smartfix and Hypotential. This is Unlocking Business, where we have real conversations around business, leadership, mindset and personal growth. If you've been getting value from these conversations, please take a second to like, subscribe and follow our channels. It helps us reach more people, bring on more guests, and share more stories. Now, let's get into this episode.

Kane: Today, I'm joined by Isabelle Charter. Isabelle has spent nearly two decades building, scaling, investing in and supporting startups. She's Head of Venture Studios at BetterLabs and CEO of Town Square, and previously built and exited Drip, Australia's first investing app for under 18s. Today we're talking about startups, innovation, entrepreneurship, and what it takes to turn an idea into a successful business. How did you first get into startups?

[01:03] A nightclub app in Rio

Isabelle: It was actually trying to solve a problem that I had. When you're 19 in Rio in Brazil, where I'm from, going to the right nightclub is a massive, massive issue. So I decided that for my final project at uni, I would build an app to help me find the right place to go at any point in Rio. And that was my first journey. I basically did everything wrong, and then I realised that I had to learn a little bit more, but I completely fell in love with the startup and innovation world.

Kane: So was that the right clubs as in from a safety perspective?

Isabelle: No, [laughter] it was the right club as in which ones were pumping and which ones were empty. In Rio there are so many different options of nightclubs. So we thought that was a pretty big issue that we should solve.

[02:08] Why the big business plan failed

Isabelle: So together with two mates, we started to build something. We built this business plan that had like a 10-year forecast of how we would all become millionaires and everything that we would have to build. And we actually put a lot of effort into the actual plan. We only started developing maybe six months later, and we only had an app live over a year after the first idea came out. We put so much effort, so much time into it. And then we realised that when you're innovating, you can't really plan that much. You need to start doing and you have to learn as you go.

Isabelle: So that ended up being a really, really interesting experience. We launched the app. We had about 6,000 users at the time. We got invited to join an accelerator program in Rio. But at the time I was also doing some work with social impact, and I was building some projects in Amazonia, and I decided that I wanted to do that more than I wanted to solve the problem [sighs] of the right nightclub. So we ended up not pursuing it, and we just closed the app and shut that down. But that was my first connection with startups and entrepreneurship, and again, I learned so much from everything that we did.

Kane: Yeah. Right. So did you have to get funding for an app like that?

Isabelle: We self-funded that one, because it was mostly me and my two friends just coding and basically doing everything that needed to be done. So I don't think there was a lot of money in there. There was a little bit of money on the marketing side of things, but it was mostly just us getting hands-on, working overnight and weekends, and just making it happen.

[04:18] Coding, AI and prototyping

Kane: So do you have a background in coding?

Isabelle: I'm an engineer.

Kane: Yeah.

Isabelle: I usually don't get into the code myself, except now with AI you can vibe code a little bit. Not sure if that counts. But we did have one of our friends who was a software developer, so he was the main one in charge of the code. I was helping more with the build, the strategy, how the app looked, and just working together on that.

Kane: The reason I asked that is because we've been building an app for Smartfix for probably about two years, but we don't have any coding or people that can do that in house. So it's cost a lot of money.

Isabelle: Oh yeah.

Kane: Getting external people to actually do the technical stuff. So I thought I'd ask that question.

Isabelle: Yeah, I think definitely having someone in your team who knows how to code really helps. That said, I think right now with AI, there's a lot of vibe coding that can get you very far.

Kane: Do you think there's a risk with that though? Because I know friends of mine are trying to make their own apps and stuff, but if you actually launch one and it takes off and there's issues with it, is AI good enough to be able to fix things ongoing?

Isabelle: I don't think it's at a point where you can fully launch an app without having someone who actually goes through the code and debugs and understands what's happening. I think it's really good to get you 70 or 80% there. It's really good for quick prototyping, testing, learning what needs to be done. Because often a lot of the mistakes that we make in the startup world is we overbuild before validating the idea. As a founder, you're so certain about the problem. You're so certain that you know the solution, and then you get excited, and then you build, build, build before going and talking to the customer, or before going and actually testing and seeing what the edge cases are and what's happening.

Isabelle: So I think right now it's a very interesting stage for startups, because we have the ability to build the first prototype that allows us to test and define what it is that we need to build very quickly. But then there's definitely a second stage that comes with the assurance that everything is working, with the compliance, especially if you're getting sensitive information from your clients. If you need something that is reliable and predictable and won't have bugs, then you definitely will need someone to help you.

Kane: Humans.

Isabelle: Yeah, I think we still need humans to do that part of the job.

Kane: That's an interesting point. It just sounds so familiar, about just going full ham into the idea, and it's something that Daniel Priestley talks about a lot, is just test it first. Try and get the customer's feedback before you go too deep with spending, because like you said, sometimes you get excited and you spend a bit too much time or too much money.

Isabelle: Oh yeah.

Kane: Inventing this thing, and then it might not be anywhere near as good as what you'd hoped.

Isabelle: Starting a company, having a startup, is such a humbling exercise. You have to acknowledge how much you don't know, and you have to be so open to listening to literally everyone around you. Customers, your teammates, your advisers, you just have to listen, because you are likely more wrong than you are right.

[07:29] Five-year visions, not five-year plans

Isabelle: So I think the first idea is literally a starting point. I like when people have sort of a vision of what needs to be, or especially a very good and clear connection with what the problem is, but flexibility around the solution. I think that is definitely one of the indicators of success.

Kane: So do you think people need to have five-year business plans when they do make a startup?

Isabelle: No, [laughter] I think they need to have five-year visions. I think they need to have a scenario where things work well. If you're getting into a market, you need to know, is your market big enough that if you're successful in five years, that will give you the results that you want?

Kane: Right.

Isabelle: You need to have an idea of what a potential pathway is where you achieve success, but you also need to be open to the fact that this is just a plan. Things will change, so how do you adapt, and would you be happy with other ways to make that dream happen?

Kane: Yeah, 100% agree with that one. [laughter] I'd always say I never really had any plans at the start. It was like, you get your idea and you do that, then you pivot that way and you go that way, and it changes 400 times. We're rebranding at the moment, and we're like nine years in, and we're still trying to work out exactly what's the best way, or make those 1% things that are going to make it a little bit more efficient each time.

Isabelle: Yeah. And to be honest, I don't think that's only startups. I think that's just life and careers in general. You don't need to be a founder or an entrepreneur. If I look at my professional career in general, so many things happened that you could say it was by chance, or it was just because I was doing something at the time and I just planted the seeds for an opportunity to come in the future. So I just really believe, do your best and be open to opportunities, and be flexible to what that could look like.

Kane: Yeah, the opportunity one is crucial, and I think timing as well. Sometimes timing is everything, especially when there's something like AI coming out that can throw off your five-year plan overnight, depending on what changes overnight.

Isabelle: Yeah.

[09:38] What BetterLabs is

Kane: So explain what BetterLabs is.

Isabelle: Okay. [laughter] So BetterLabs is RAC's strategic innovation function. Ten years ago, RAC was rethinking their strategy for the future, understanding that there's a lot of disruption coming. When most of the revenue and the member value is coming from roadside assistance and car insurance, what will happen when we have a lot more autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles? There's a lot of disruption coming. So how can RAC make sure that in 30 years we'll still be offering great value to the members? We are for the better. We are for the better of Western Australia. How do we make sure that this is still happening?

Isabelle: So within this context, they decided to create BetterLabs. BetterLabs is a corporate venture fund and a venture studio. Within the fund, we have $23 million that we've already fully invested in external startups. So how does a fund work? We have founders that come to us and they say, "I have this startup. It's really growing. This is the traction. This is my business plan, and I need this amount of money, and I'll give you a percentage of my company." So usually we may have 5% or 10% of the company, and then we'll give them a cheque, and that cheque will help them grow, right? And when they grow, our part of the investment also grows. So that's one part of BetterLabs.

[11:46] The venture studio and Plant with Willow

Isabelle: The other part is our venture studio. Within the studio, we build new startups that are 100% owned by RAC, from concept to scale. So we analyse the market, we find new opportunities, and then we have what we call our innovation funnel, which is a stage gate approach where we consistently test and validate new ideas, and the more we validate, the more we invest and build these companies.

Isabelle: So as an example, we have a company called Plant with Willow. I think about three or four years ago when we started to explore this space, I don't know if you knew this, but Australians kill 82 million plants every year. So everyone knows a serial plant killer. Keeping your plants alive is hard.

Kane: Are you looking at yours?

Isabelle: I know.

Kane: We've got a fake one there. [laughter]

Isabelle: Yeah. So if you don't want fake plants, keeping your plants alive can be very hard, and we thought there was an opportunity to help people solve this problem. Initially we did a lot of market research. We talked to a lot of people, asking, "Is it a problem for you to keep your plants alive?" And consistently we got, "Yes, yes, yes, I'm consistently killing my plants. I do need help."

Isabelle: So after doing a lot of research and talking to a lot of customers, we created this concept of this super cool hardware that you put in your pot plant, and it actually analyses everything that you need, together with an app that understands what type of plant it is, and then it will tell you you need more water, or you need to change your soil, you need more nutrients. That will give you every single piece of information that you need to keep your plants alive.

Isabelle: We again showed this concept to a lot of people and got a lot of positive feedback. So we started to do pre-orders and a Kickstarter campaign. We launched the Kickstarter with just a video of what it would be, and we also started to actually play around with the hardware and make sure that we could develop the technology. It was a very successful campaign on Kickstarter, and we sold thousands of sensors as a pre-order. With that, we went back to the board and said, "Hey, there's a clear demand. We can develop the technology. Here's the hardware, this is the software." And then we got further investment to go and actually deploy.

[14:58] Kickstarter and pre-selling

Isabelle: And now we're selling at Bunnings, so shout out to the Plant with Willow guys. If you need one, [laughter] just go to Bunnings, you can buy it. You can buy directly from the website, and we're also selling in Europe and Japan, and having conversations with the US. So now we're expanding internationally, which is really, really cool.

Kane: So all of that was done from within the BetterLabs environment?

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: Wow. So when you actually have to create the hardware, is that built locally as well?

Isabelle: Yeah. So we developed everything internally.

Kane: So I suppose the question with that then, because you pre-sold the products before they were made. If you then took that idea back to the funding people, which is you guys, and they said no for whatever reason, how does that work if you've actually pre-sold the product to the clients?

Isabelle: When you do a Kickstarter campaign, you always highlight the risks that are involved. I don't know if you guys have heard about Kickstarter. It's a website that allows people to buy products before they are ready. So you get a really, really good discount, because you know that you're funding something that has a very big risk of not happening, right? So people know that they are basically investing in a startup.

Kane: I was going to ask, is that basically like investing then?

Isabelle: Well, it is investing, because they're buying a product but they are taking a risk. And a lot of different products start like this. Board games, for example, are very famous for people just going and putting them in there. So basically it's a way of saying, if I get enough backers, then I can go and build my product. If I don't get it, then we'll return your money and I'm sorry, it just didn't happen.

Kane: Yes. They would get the money returned.

Isabelle: Yeah. So they would get the money returned.

Kane: So that Kickstarter, is that international?

Isabelle: Yeah. It's a pretty big website.

Kane: I've heard of that.

Isabelle: Yeah. It's really cool. Have a look.

Kane: Yeah. So with the plant one then specifically, was that a subscription model through the app?

Isabelle: It can be. You can buy just the hardware and get the free version of the app, or if you want premium features, for example, if you want access to a plant doctor, where you can actually talk to a human and say, "My leaves are turning yellow, what should I do?" The plant doctor will help you, and then you get the premium subscription.

Kane: Interesting. That's cool. [laughter] Maybe we need some.

Kane: So with BetterLabs funded businesses, is it mainly apps? Is it tech? Is that the whole idea, tech businesses?

Isabelle: First of all, we try to find businesses that are for the better. It is RAC's tagline, and it is something that we really try to search for when we create a new company. But also businesses that are scalable, and for you to be scalable, there's usually a component of technology involved. For example, the other one that I'm leading right now, Town Square, is a strata communications platform. It's a software that helps strata managers communicate better with owners, and it's fully tech based.

[18:06] Killing her own startup ideas

Kane: So when you do start one, do you hire people as employees through BetterLabs, and they're the ones that are founding that new startup?

Isabelle: Yeah. So all of our founders are employees of BetterLabs, and then they go, they research, and then they try to make the startup happen. The good thing about this is that we understand that innovation is a high-risk business, and we understand that there are a lot of failures that come before the success.

Isabelle: Even if I look at my own story, I've actually started and killed businesses before I had my success. I had lots of ideas that were either very early stage, when I went and talked to the first clients and they're like, "Nah, your idea is horrible." It's like, "Okay, cool." [laughter] Move on to the next. Or I would build a small prototype and then realise that people just didn't want to pay enough for that.

Isabelle: So for example, one of the ideas that I explored: I've had a lot of issues doing deadlifts, and back issues, for example. And I've spent quite a bit of money just on physio and PT to try to solve that. Talking to a lot of people, I realised that is actually a very common issue. Going to the gym and making sure that you're exercising with proper form is very hard, because it's hard for you to have full consciousness of where your body is, and even just knowing what it is that you need to do.

Isabelle: So we started to explore some 3D technology that was being used to make movies, where they can record exactly where your body is in space, and thinking, can we use that to help people when they are exercising? So we did an initial test. We partnered with a gym, and we went to this gym and we ran a few tests, and people tried a mock-up technology that we had. We just hacked a few things together. The technology wasn't really there. We just got a few other technologies available, put those together, had a PT watching it, and we would give people an actual result. So let's say they did three sets of squats. By the end of it, they were really exercising a lot better.

[21:19] Continue, pivot or kill

Isabelle: So then we would offer a product and say, "Hey, would you want to buy this now?" And they're like, "Yeah, super cool." "How much would you pay?" The answer of how much they would pay was significantly lower than what we would need to make the business viable. So we learned from the test that it would just be too hard to bring this technology. It would cost too much, and people were not seeing the value as high enough. So we decided to kill this project. I worked on it for probably six or eight weeks and moved on to the next.

Kane: Yeah. Okay. Would that be one of the longest amounts of time you would spend on one before you decide to not go ahead?

Isabelle: That depends. I've spent longer, because we were seeing signs and then something happened and we had to kill it. We definitely try to fail or continue. We usually say continue, pivot or kill, as quickly and as high quality as possible, right? The worst scenario for us is a grey zone of, "I don't know if that's actually a go or no go." I love an amazing failure, if I test something and it's a clear no. If I go there, I build something really good, and then everyone says, "I don't want to buy this." Great. I can just kill it and move on. The challenge is when you're like, "Maybe, I don't know." And then you don't know if you have to continue or not. That grey zone is hard. But we definitely fail fast, and I think that's something that we really live by at BetterLabs.

Kane: Is there usually a set amount of value that can get put into a startup as well before you have to start making those decisions faster?

Isabelle: Yeah. So the investment that we put in, both in terms of money and time, is related to how much we have validated. We usually use the lean business canvas, which has the problem, the solution, your unique value proposition, your channels.

Isabelle: So what we say is, I have a week to validate that the problem is an actual problem, and then I have three weeks to validate that the solution I created to the problem is a solution that people want. If I validate that, then I get more time to go and validate the channels, how do I go and reach out. And then I have more time to validate that I can actually build the technology. So we say that it's in stages, and there is a gate at every stage, and it's a week, three weeks, two months, three months, four months. So you get more time and money the more you validate that your idea has legs.

Kane: I was going to say, it sounds like little milestones. You hit that one, keep going, like you said.

Isabelle: Yeah, exactly.

Kane: Continue, pivot or...

Isabelle: Kill. Yeah, exactly.

[24:33] OpenHood, voice inspections for mechanics

Isabelle: We have another cool one happening right now. It's called OpenHood. It's a voice assisted inspection tool for auto service workshops, and that's pretty cool because we're doing it in partnership with the main business. So a team from BetterLabs embedded themselves in one of the RAC workshops, and they started to talk to all of the mechanics, all of the service advisors, all of the service managers to understand what some of the big issues were.

Isabelle: So for example, when a car comes in, you have to do your inspection, and then you have to write down everything that is a problem. No one likes doing that. No one likes the admin work. And they spend 15 minutes writing it down, and then that paper goes to the service advisor, for example. The service advisor first needs to read that letter, and it might take some time to actually call the person and say, "You need to replace your filter because there's something wrong with it." And then if it's already 2pm or 3pm, you don't want to do that service on the same day, because you need to pick up your kids from school, so you need to pick up your car, right?

Isabelle: So what this new tool does is all of the mechanics have headphones with a microphone, and then automatically, while they're doing the inspection, it fills in everything that is happening and creates a beautiful report that the service advisor can immediately see, and then call you and say, "Hey, this is what your car needs. Would you like us to do this or not?" So we make the entire process of the workshop significantly easier, and it's better for everyone, every team member involved, and it's better for the ultimate client, the one having the car serviced.

Isabelle: So for us this is a really clear win of how we provide value back to the members and to the service. But also, we're building something that can improve our own internal processes, and it's an industry-wide issue. It's not only RAC, it's also other workshops. So right now we've already validated it inside the main business, but we're also working with independent workshops and other franchises so we can launch, because this is a tool that we believe we can sell internationally.

Kane: Mhm.

Isabelle: So it's basically a win-win for everyone.

Kane: So the mechanics themselves wear the microphone, the earpiece, and they're talking through the job as they're doing it?

Isabelle: Yeah, which is really cool. We use headphones that are bone conduction. That makes it safe, because you don't have anything blocking. You can fully hear everything that is happening, because the headphones sit sort of over the ear.

Kane: The ones that go behind your head.

Isabelle: Yeah, they go behind your head and you have a small microphone, so it doesn't really impact anything. From a safety perspective it's 100% fine, and it means that while they do the service, they are just talking.

Kane: How did some of the mechanics go with the new experience?

Isabelle: It's funny, because I think most of them had the same reaction. The first time they tried it, they're like, "Oh, this is a little bit weird." But now all of them are like, "I never want to go back to paper ever again."

Kane: I suppose because they're the ones that actually have to write it down, it's actually helping them as well.

Isabelle: Yeah. And I think that's the most important part of a startup, is you have to build with your customer, right? When we did that, our team was literally embedded in the workshop, building with the mechanics. It was like, "What do you want? How do we change that? This is the first version." And then they would give us feedback, and then we would improve. "Can you test it again?" "No, still not good enough." "All right, let's keep developing." "Still not good enough." "Okay, let's keep developing." So we built something that was exactly what they wanted. We built it for them and we built it with them. And I think every successful startup is building for their clients and with their clients.

[29:50] Voice tools for trades and AI notes

Kane: Yeah, that's cool. That's such a good idea. Just thinking now how good that would be for our trades, not mechanics, but electricians that go to site and go through either a quote or an inspection, like a home inspection. We need to check and test smoke alarms, safety switches. That would be so good, because they don't like trying to type and stuff.

Isabelle: Oh yeah.

Kane: So we're sort of in between, because I was using voice to text within the app that we use. But again, if you can do that in real time, where you're walking through, that would be amazing.

Isabelle: Yeah. There's a startup accelerator program here in Perth called the Plus Eight accelerator program, and one of the startups is called Tradescribe, and I believe that's exactly what they're trying to do. It's sort of a voice tool for trades to be able to describe their work.

Kane: Would that be the same technology then as the mechanic one?

Isabelle: Look, I don't have the details of the technology that they're using. I can't speak for them. I just know that it's super cool. And I think there's a lot of this type of tool popping up in many different industries. If you go to a GP right now, a lot of doctors are using similar systems that are built for doctors, and they can just transcribe your appointment, because again, no doctor wants to have to write down everything that they've done after the appointment. And this whole thing of transcribing meetings, I use it all the time.

Kane: So good.

[31:00] Customising AI for how you work

Isabelle: And I think it's also a lot about customising it to what you need to happen after. So I have custom instructions for my meetings, so I know that after every single meeting, this is how I want my summary to be organised. So I know exactly what my actions are, what the decisions are. For example, I'm talking to many different startups, and for me it's very important to keep track of progress so I can collect all of the progress together. So from my meetings, I always capture the key challenges and the key wins. So every month I can just ask my agent, "Hey, from all of my startups, can you please give me top challenges, top wins?" And I have a report automatically generated. So I think learning how to customise the existing technology to what works for you today is what's going to make us more efficient.

Kane: And how hard is that to customise? Because you're not just talking about a prompt that you use within it. Obviously I know AI and the transcript things can be slightly different, but how much do you have to customise them?

Isabelle: I don't think you have to customise much, and it's also not hard. I think you just have to, again, be open and ask questions. I personally use Claude a lot, and I use Notion as my system of record for meetings and everything else. So often I'll just go and ask it, because Notion has an AI, "How can I customise this for me? Can you help me build an agent?"

Isabelle: And I think the very interesting part of AI right now is that you can ask them. In Claude, when I started using it, I said, "I'm a non-technical person. When you speak technical terms, please make sure that you explain all of them to me and make everything very easy and for beginners." So it really helps you and gives you a step by step. And again, I'm not embarrassed. It's a private chat, right? So I can just say, "I'm sorry, I did not understand, can you please explain that to me again?" Or, "I got this error, can you please help me solve it?" So I would really encourage everyone to go to your AI of choice and just go crazy and say, "This is what I need. Can you help me build it? Ask me the right questions."

Isabelle: And explain to them who you are. Give context, or say, "Hey, I'm an electrician. This is the type of work that I do. This is my biggest problem. This is the thing that I hate doing and I don't want to do it anymore. Can you do it faster for me? Give me an idea. How do I build this?" And it will give you suggestions. So it's cool because it's interactive.

Kane: There's a lot of discussion about which platform is best at the moment, but Claude seems to be the most talked about one at the moment. We just started using it in the last couple of weeks and it's pretty phenomenal. Having the context there in the project. We've not gone as far as trying to make an agent yet. That will hopefully be something we can one day learn how to do, but at the moment it's just a project where all the context is in the history, and then obviously it reads from there. So our Smartfix documents will be in the back end. And obviously for us trades, trying to work that out can be difficult.

Isabelle: Look, I think they're all pretty good. Every week there's a different release and then something else is better. If you're using ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, honestly, I think all of them can help. So I wouldn't be overly concerned. The new Gemini is so much better. I think for what we need, we're not curing cancer. At least some people are. I'm not. So for the level of what I need, any model is more than sufficient. I imagine for you, for what you're doing, and for what 95% of the population and most people hearing this podcast today need, any model that you pick will be helpful.

Isabelle: I think it's just explore and be curious, but also, going back to what you said before, be mindful that it might have bugs and things may go wrong, and it is a little bit of a black box. So it's good for simple things. Every time that you add a level of complexity, make sure that you test, make sure that you feel comfortable with the risk that you're taking in doing that.

Kane: Yeah. It's interesting, especially with Claude and how it's got the coding section. A friend of mine has been trying to make an app for a while, like an employment kind of thing, and the amount of time he's spent on it. I'm like, "Oh my gosh." I'm pretty sure there are ones out there that do the same thing.

[37:21] What Town Square does

Isabelle: You have to be mindful not to try and reinvent the wheel, because there are already platforms out there.

Kane: Just try and keep things simple, because you can go down rabbit holes. I went down one the other day on ChatGPT. [snorts] I was trying to build my own context background for my personal branding and Hypotential, and I've ended up just ruining what we already had. We had a very simple 10 or 15 page document, and now it's probably 40 or 50 pages, and I didn't finish it because it was a rabbit hole. It was so confusing.

Isabelle: Yeah, I agree.

Kane: I should have saved the original one, because now we have nothing. Now we're back at square one. We've got to start again.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: So, Town Square. You're CEO of Town Square. What is that?

Isabelle: So let's start with the problem that we're solving, right? Strata managers are incredibly overworked professionals. Imagine they are usually managing hundreds of different schemes and buildings, and hundreds of owners that will have different issues, from "I have a roof leak" to "I have to organise an AGM" to "we're doing renovations." There's a lot that happens, and for every different issue they will need to have different conversations with many different stakeholders.

Isabelle: So for example, let's go back to the roof leak case. You have an owner that sends you an email, and then from that you need to contact the committee to make sure that they approve that roof leak to be fixed. You have to email three different contractors to get different quotes. You may need to email your team and align on what needs to be done. So that's already six or seven email threads that, if you go to your inbox, are all over the place. You multiply that by the 50 different issues that you're dealing with at the same time, and your Outlook inbox can be absolute chaos.

Isabelle: So what we do is we create a specific, built-for-purpose platform for strata managers. We completely replace Outlook with this system that organises everything into case files. So all of those seven conversations live in the same place. And because they live in the same place, we can also bring a lot of very specific things to strata. We connect to their trust accounting platform, and we have AI that understands the context of that conversation. So we make everything significantly faster and more efficient, and easier to collaborate on between the team. That means we help the strata managers manage their work and their communications better, and ultimately provide a better service to all of the owners, because if you have a roof leak, you want it fixed as quickly as possible. So by helping the strata managers, we provide a better home experience to everyone.

[40:33] Industry-specific software vs generic CRMs

Kane: So what would be the difference with that software as opposed to just an off-the-shelf CRM, like HubSpot or something like that? Does that not do those things?

Isabelle: That's very interesting. I think it's the custom build. We understand strata, right? So we organise everything in the way that is built for strata's needs. The main one, for example, is the fact that we connect with the trust accounting platform. I'm probably getting too technical into the strata world here, but let's just say that we connect with all of the other systems that strata uses, especially around finances. So if an owner asks me something about a levy or something that they need to pay, I can get the answer automatically because I'm connected. Or if someone emails me without letting me know where they live, I also know that, because I'm connected to other systems, right?

Isabelle: And there are a lot of different compliance aspects that need to be followed. We have to make sure that there's no cross-contamination. The by-laws of each scheme, of each building, are very different. So if someone asked you a question about "Can I have a pet in my apartment?", it's not the same answer for every single building, because buildings will have different by-laws, right? So we understand this context in a way that HubSpot doesn't.

Isabelle: And I'm a big fan of very custom, industry-specific platforms, because they will provide you a level of understanding of your problem that the generic ones won't. Which is the same if you think about why you'd want a specific meeting notes transcriber. You can use a general one. Anyone can use that, right? But why do you want one that is just for tradies? Why would you want one that is just for doctors? Because the more you understand the context that you live in, the better you can offer the specific features that you need, and that are going to be very different from someone in a different industry. So all of them have value. HubSpot is a great tool. A lot of our clients were previously using Outlook and Monday.com.

Kane: Mhm.

Isabelle: Two generic platforms, and we replaced Monday.com and Outlook with just Town Square.

Kane: Yeah. And then you can have the APIs and stuff from the other platforms that they are required to have, like you said, so that your single source of truth is in Town Square, and that can feed the data from the other platforms that they also have to use.

Isabelle: Yeah. Exactly.

Kane: That's interesting, because we don't really use a CRM within Smartfix for our trade business. We use a service-based platform, but it's not specific to electrical. So there are so many little things that are annoying because it's not customised for us, and you can't customise it, because they don't let you do anything at all. So there are so many little things that we would like to change, but we just can't. Obviously we've looked into having one custom built for us. Again, it's like reinventing the wheel, so for us it's not worth that value. But it sounds like Town Square. If there was something like Town Square for electrical specifically, we would probably pay a premium for that if it's perfect for us.

Isabelle: Exactly. That's exactly what we do.

Kane: Can you build one for us? [laughter]

Isabelle: Maybe if the market's big enough, we can.

Kane: I think there's one that's making a bit of headway in Australia now from America called ServiceTitan.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: They seem to be trying to make a CRM and service-based business platform all in one. Because in theory it sounds like we probably should have a CRM as well as our job management platform. But again, it's trying to find the right CRM that can speak with it, so we're not double handling all the information. But again, it's too hard. We're tradies. We just want to go and do the trade job. So it just becomes too hard, and we just stick with "it'll do."

Isabelle: Yeah. But that's it. If you have someone who's willing to put in the effort to really, really understand you. What does your day look like? What are the small things, your pet hates, or the things that you do 20 times a day that you're like, "I just don't want to be doing this. Is there a way that you can do it better?" And I do feel like there is space for those deep expertise, deep industry platforms, because for the big players it's just very hard to do this.

Isabelle: Sometimes what the big players can do is offer a lot of flexibility in terms of customisation. If you look at tools like Monday.com, like Notion, which is the one that I use, it's so flexible that I can build for what I need. And I think it's quite interesting, the idea that they have templates. They are very generic, but then people build templates for the specific niches. So you can just go, "Okay, I'm going to use a generic tool plus a specific template, and then that works for me." Or, "I'll put in the effort to customise it for my needs." Because I'm pretty particular with what I want, I've customised my own thing, but it was a lot of time spent on that. But yeah, pros and cons.

Kane: Yeah, I know what you mean. With ours, there are add-ons. There are other third-party add-ons that you can have in there, like Zapier integrations, all that kind of stuff. So sometimes you just have to bolt on.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: So at what point do you stop just bolting on and actually move systems? But obviously that's a very expensive, big exercise, to move systems.

Isabelle: Yeah, it is.

Kane: So with Town Square then, is that a platform that any strata company can sign up for on a subscription basis, the same as most? Is it a CRM?

Isabelle: Yeah, it is a CRM. So CRM, inbox and task management. And then they just sign up with us. We do the migration from Outlook. We connect to their other systems. We offer an owners' app, so the owners can see everything that is happening, receive announcements and see the tickets.

Isabelle: So for example, the committee. Just going a little bit deeper into strata, you have all of your owners from a specific scheme, right? And then you have the representatives of that scheme, the committee of owners, and they are usually the ones who are dealing with the issues and the situations that arise.

Isabelle: So our app really helps them, because we have a very clear way. We have this Kanban board that has all of the open issues, so they can see, "This is what's happening with lot three. This is what's happening with lot 17. This is what's happening with lot 26." So they can be on top of everything, and they don't need to keep emailing the strata manager and asking, because everything is clear for them now. They can just go inside and see the details, see what has been actioned, and see which trade is going there on which day. So again, those very specific things. The strata manager used to spend quite a bit of time just updating the committee. Now the committee has a tool where they can have all of the visibility and the transparency that they want. So that makes everyone's lives better.

[49:12] Saying no to paying customers

Kane: That sounds really cool. So is it built for real estates as well, or is that a bit different?

Isabelle: Just for strata now.

Kane: Okay. Stick to the niche.

Isabelle: Stick to the niche. We're still early stage. There are still a lot of strata management companies that can adopt us. And it's funny, because we do get asked, "Can I use this for facility management? Can I use this for property management?" And we have to say no.

Kane: How hard is that, saying that?

Isabelle: It's very hard when you're a startup and someone says, "I want to give you money," and you're like, "I'm sorry, I am not for you." It's very hard. But I think that's very important, because if you say yes, one, you're not going to be servicing them that well. They're not going to be super happy, because I don't understand the nuances of property management as much as I understand strata, and I'm sure that there's going to be a lot where I fall short if they start using it. So they're going to be annoyed, because they're going to want to customise, or they're going to think that it doesn't suit their needs. And then I'll have two choices. Either I'm going to start spending time customising for them, and then I'm going to spend less time making my product better for strata.

Kane: Mhm.

Isabelle: Or I'm going to leave them dissatisfied. And I think it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking you can do everything, and thinking that you're not choosing. You're always making a choice. When you choose to do everything, you're choosing to do less of everything, right? You only have so much time, and even emotional capacity and focus and excitement. I'm a big, big fan of focus and going all in. At BetterLabs we like to say we don't do things by halves. [laughter]

[51:22] Smartfix going from 15 trades to three

Kane: It's such a good topic and good timing for us as well. Obviously, as a young founder of my business, we grew quite fast, 140 staff within eight years. So we just said yes to everything. Anything and everything. For example, I'm an electrician by trade. So we've had loads of other trades. Obviously electrical, air conditioning, plumbing, gas, roofing, tiling, carpentry, cabinetry, ceiling fixing, painting. There are so many different things that we've just said yes to. My idea was to try and make it as easy for the homeowner as possible.

Kane: So if you have an issue in your household, let's say you're doing a kitchen renovation, you need pretty much all of those trades. Cool, we can do it all for you. I was thinking it's going to be so cost effective, because if you Google "renovation person near me", we pop up. We don't just come and do electrical, we'll do the whole job. So the customer value for us is huge in theory, but there were so many downsides. Again, focus is a big one for me now. So we've basically reverted all the way back to electrical and air conditioning. We do ceiling fixing and painting as well. We've gone from having like 15 trades to like three, and the big thing is focus.

Isabelle: Yeah. And you can have more efficient processes. You can be better at what you do. And I think even from a customer value perspective, if you say, "Oh, those guys are good," but, "Hey, those guys are just the best plumbers you could ever get," I think people see that differently. You perceive it differently. I think it's like when you want to buy a doughnut. You can just go and buy a doughnut from a bakery, or you can go to a doughnut-specific store. Or gelato.

Kane: A petrol station.

Isabelle: Yeah. I think it feels different if you go, "I'm just going to go and buy gelato from this gelato store." I think it's very, very different how you perceive value from big generic stuff versus, "I'm just the best at doing this one thing."

Kane: It's so funny. We've got a bit of an ant infestation at home at the moment, and we've had pest control places out in the past. I was at the shops the other day and I saw a van there. It just said "The Ant Guy."

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: He had these big ants all over his van. I'm like, it's so specific, it's so niche, but it's like, let's try it.

Isabelle: You know what? I would trust him. I don't know him, but if I had to choose between, "Hey, I'm this full service provider and I can solve your ant problem," or the ant guy, I'm picking the ant guy. I don't know him, but I'm picking him.

[55:37] Sizing your market

Kane: Yeah. So how important then, because I assume there would always be a risk. Is that a scalable company for him? Obviously he might not want it to be. You mentioned something earlier, I can't remember how you worded it, but I suppose it's how many people are in the market for that specific thing. Because if he's like, "I want to grow a $20 million business," but he's just doing ants in Perth, he obviously has to do the research on that first. So how would he do that research to see if his business is scalable enough to become a $20 million turnover business?

Isabelle: Well, first of all, you need to understand what the size of the ant problem is, right? What's the size of the ant problem in WA? What's the size of the ant problem in Australia and in the world? And then you need to understand how big you want to get, because not everyone wants to be a billion dollar company, right? Honestly, it seems like it's the dream, the bigger the better. It's not necessarily true. You can definitely get to a point and have a lifestyle business, and be making enough to live comfortably and still come back home to your kids, and be happier than if you were dealing with "let's make this a billion dollar company and scale internationally", and travel all over the world and never be home to go back to your kids.

Isabelle: So I think there's a personal decision there, and I think all options are valid. You just have to know what you want, what's important to you. I've definitely changed my mind.

Kane: I was going to say that. Do you think people know until they've actually tried it?

Isabelle: Probably not. It's hard to feel the pain that you haven't lived. You can hear some things, but until you actually live and experience it, you will also change your mind as you go.

Isabelle: But I would say, just going back to the first point, if you have a goal, let's say you want to be a $20 million business, you have to understand: would you prefer to do that by being the ant guy, let's say, in Australia or in the world? "I just want to solve the ant problem, but in order to make it to $20 million, I'm going to need to be solving the ant problem in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia," right? Or you can say, "No, I'm going to solve five different things, but I'm just going to stay in Perth. So I'm going to be the Perth guy, and the Perth guy solves those five things." So I think there are different ways that you can grow. And again, that's just a choice and a business strategy. They're all valid, as long as you know, and they're going to come with different challenges.

[58:48] Growth limits and servicing your home

Kane: It's an interesting one, just going back to the lessons that we've learned as well with Smartfix. For example, electrical and air conditioning is our main service category. Our issue now is I'd like to have 40 vans doing that, but most of our work is through Google Ads. So we have a high spend on cost per click, but the more you push that and the higher you bid, the higher the cost is per job.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: So then you run the numbers, and that's not doable. That's not possible. So in theory, we're probably almost capped out where we are right now, without blowing the cost per click out too much. Or we can try and pivot and look at real estate, which is what we are doing. We're trying to see if we can get into that market a little bit. We are probably a little bit too much of a higher price point for them, because it's a bit more competitive.

Kane: So we're just looking at ways we can pivot, and servicing is going to be a big thing for us, like you were talking about with the mechanics and servicing. We're trying to implement something now where you service your house for the electrical, smoke alarms, switchboard, because no one does it. It's most people's highest investment they'll ever pay for, but they don't maintain it until there's issues. So everyone's reactive as opposed to proactive. We're trying to figure out how we can actually market that to people, because no one does it, so they don't want to do it. But you service your car.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: Most cars are maybe 50 to 80K, and you spend $600 every year servicing that car without fail. Why don't you service your house? I don't know what the average house price is these days, but probably close to a million dollars, and you don't service it. We're trying to figure out how we actually market that to people.

[1:00:54] The cost of educating a market

Isabelle: Yeah, it's an interesting one, because every business that requires a change in behaviour or market education is very hard, right? People are just used to being reactive, and the good thing about Google Ads as a channel is you capture that client at the moment where they want to solve the problem, right? They're thinking about it. It's annoying them enough that they stop their day to go and Google, "I need to fix this now." So it's a great moment to just show up and say, "Hey, I have a solution for you."

Isabelle: Your other option is the person is just there scrolling Instagram, and you interrupt their day to say, "Hey, have you thought about how in the future you may run into this issue? You might want to start servicing your house now." So you have to change the behaviour. You have to make them think of something that is not a priority. So there's definitely a higher cost of educating a market. It's a very different moment. You're going to have to do brand awareness, and then you're probably going to have to show up a couple of times before they actually take an action. It's going to take longer. The conversion time is going to be significantly longer. And you may need to be a lot more creative. It's literally a change in behaviour.

Isabelle: If it happens, it would be great, because then you're going to get your first client, and they're going to tell their mates, and they're going to say, "Hey, I started servicing my house, and you know what? I haven't had any issues in the past three years because I've been doing it properly." But it takes time. Educating a market takes time.

Isabelle: And what can happen is you can spend a lot of money educating a market, but then the benefits are not just yours. Because let's say Smartfix spends a lot of money in the next three years changing behaviour, and suddenly everyone in Perth is servicing their houses on a subscription basis, right? "I pay you guys a yearly fee. You come to my house. Perfect. I never have any more issues." Any other competitor can now just come and sell the subscription, and they will benefit from the investment that you made without having to do the work for the first three years, right?

Isabelle: So every time you have a market change, it's expensive to be the first. People talk a lot about first mover advantage, because people will know your brand, and you have to make sure that you keep that advantage, because first movers also have a lot of disadvantages if it involves market education.

Kane: And that's from a cost standpoint.

[1:04:06] First mover advantage and switching costs

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: So what's better, being the first or not? Other people might not do it though, if we're like, "We'll wait until someone else does it."

Isabelle: I would say that it depends on the type of business that you have and how sticky your product is. So for example, for Town Square, being the first mover, there's no one doing what we're doing with the approach that we have. I think it's a massive advantage, because there's a big cost of change. If someone starts using our platform, it's very hard for them to switch, because we're going to be the main system that they use on a daily basis. As a manager, they will introduce this to their owners, so the owners are going to have an app. We're going to connect the APIs to the other systems. They're going to have to train their staff. So if someone comes in after Town Square and decides to build a Town Square, they're going to have a hard time convincing their clients to swap.

Isabelle: But in your case, if someone comes and offers me a cheaper subscription, saying that they're going to offer the same services, what's my cost of change?

Kane: Wouldn't be much.

Isabelle: Wouldn't be much. So unless you give me a really good reason why I should stay with you. What can you build in terms of unfair advantage from being the first? Is there, I don't know, specific knowledge of the property that may make a difference? Can you hold information? Is it trust? What's the relationship that you build? But it's a harder one.

Kane: It is for sure. That was part of the idea of our app, because no one else has the app yet. Obviously now AI's out there, people could probably copy it. The whole idea was a subscription through our app, and you get your home service history inside the app.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: And anything that we service and maintain, we give you a lifetime guarantee on the labour portion of it. So we're trying to have those points of difference there, which we know other people won't be able to... Well, they could say they could do it, but because we do have good branding and everything already there, we feel like the advantage for us would be based off our branding that's out there.

Isabelle: Yeah. And if it's just easy and I feel like I have a connection with you. When something happens, I think especially when you build personal connections.

Kane: Mhm.

Isabelle: If I have an issue and I know I can message Kane and say, "Hey mate, what do you reckon?" And I don't need to explain a lot, because you already know my house. You've been there, and I already trust you, and I know that you're going to do a good job, and I know that you're not going to tell me that I need to do something that I don't need to do.

Kane: Yeah.

Isabelle: So I think when you build those things and you make it very easy for me, I have no reason to go and change. But I think it's important to stop and think and really take note and make a list of why your clients are still with you. Be aware of those things so that you can consistently do more of them, because often we're not aware, and then we let things slip.

Kane: That is true.

Isabelle: Yeah. So what are your top five reasons why your clients keep coming back? Make sure you know what those reasons are.

Kane: It's wild how we'd have all the information there, but yes, just those little things that you could look at which could change the game. "Okay, this person uses us every three to six months because of this. Is it our communication? Is it our customer service?" And then obviously we just improve on that even more.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: Make sure other customers know that. We've just started doing video testimonials for our customers as well.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: So we're just trying to be a little bit different.

Isabelle: Love that. [laughter]

Kane: It's hard, hey. There's a lot of competition out there.

Isabelle: It's fun.

Kane: It is fun. I love it. It's fun.

[1:08:19] Hiring for attitude

Kane: Should we turn the tables?

Isabelle: Yes. Okay, let's do it.

Kane: Is there anything we haven't spoken about that you want to go through?

Isabelle: Sure. How about we talk about teams, and how we build a high performing culture?

Kane: That could be an interesting one. It's literally a daily subject for us at the moment, trying to find good staff and obviously keeping them when they're here. So do you do the hiring yourself?

Isabelle: Yeah. So we do advertise and hire. We do get a little bit of help from a few recruiters, but I am pretty active in the process, because I believe bringing the right people on board is one of the most important things that you'll ever do in your business. Especially having the right culture fit, the right attitude. We have a very specific set of values that we make sure our team has, and we stand by them. And I feel like if you bring in someone who doesn't share the same values, that can be very bad for the entire company. So we try to talk a lot about this in all of our interviews. You're always going to be searching for the right skills, but I feel like searching for the right attitude is as valuable as the right skills.

Kane: Do you ever feel like it's hard to find the right person with all that in mind?

Isabelle: Oh, yes. [laughter] I am very, very picky. I have a pretty big checklist of things.

Kane: Do you ever lower your standards if you're really struggling to find someone?

Isabelle: No, I would just take longer.

Kane: [laughter and gasps]

Isabelle: Look, I'm not sure if it's lowering the standards, but I would be willing to hire people who don't have all of the skills that I would like them to have, as long as they have the right attitude about learning. I would never hire someone who I believe is not willing to learn, right? Or someone who's not open and doesn't have the flexibility to, for example, accept that they're wrong and try something different, because they wouldn't even enjoy working at BetterLabs, right?

[1:11:30] The BetterLabs team profile

Isabelle: In the startup world we are always testing. There is so much that we don't know. Our reality is that every single day I'm doing something that I have never done before. And if I hire someone who's not comfortable in this position, it's not going to be good for anyone, right? It's going to be bad for me. It's going to be bad for the person. It's going to be bad for the team.

Isabelle: So I am very clear that the profile of a BetterLabs team member is someone who is a hustler. They're hungry to learn. They want to collaborate. We collaborate a lot. They need to be able to work in a team. They need to be able to talk to customers. They need to be open to doing things that go beyond the scope of their work. It's very hard for me to have a specific job description, because our job is to make this startup work, and every single person there is consistently doing things that are not within the exact scope of what they got hired for. So it is important for us to be very clear on the profile of our team members.

Kane: So what kind of people apply for jobs at BetterLabs? Because the people that apply are the people that start the founder businesses.

Isabelle: It can be people who have had their own businesses before, and their businesses may have been a success or not. We do get a lot of people who used to work, or are still working, for big corporates, and they feel restricted by what they can do, and they want more autonomy and flexibility. People who want to grow in a different way. So I think usually the people who apply to work with us are seeking the excitement of high growth, and they are seeking a lot of productivity and autonomy in terms of proposing new things, and they are very curious. That's usually the type of person.

[1:13:38] Video interviews before anyone comes in

Kane: So what would the hiring and onboarding process look like from a time frame point of view? Do you run two or three interviews with different people before you bring people on?

Isabelle: Yeah. So we usually start with the normal CV. I'm not a big fan of that, to be honest. I like looking at the person's LinkedIn, and we have video interviews. For me, that is the actual first step. So usually between five to eight interviews, where we ask questions not only about the job that they will be performing and their experience, but also about who they are. What are they good at? What are they not good at? What do they do outside of work?

Isabelle: We always have that question. Why do they want to work at BetterLabs? Because we want to understand what their skills are, but we also want to get a feel for who they are as an individual. That's very important to me. So I think the video interviews help me get a sense of who they are and how they communicate, and then from there we can go into the actual in-person interviews, and usually they would be talking to a few different team members before they get hired.

Kane: So the video interview, I suppose that's to save time doing it on the video, so that they don't have to come in for that first interview, because you can sort of shortlist that way.

Isabelle: Yeah. It's our way. So we basically have the initial shortlist from the CVs, and then we get the video interviews, and then I'll go and do the in-person interviews.

Kane: Yeah.

Isabelle: But I just feel that video interviews are a significantly better way than just looking at a CV.

Kane: Yeah, for sure. CVs are just a guideline, aren't they? You really can't tell attitude.

Isabelle: No. And I think right now, when everyone's just writing their CVs with AI, I don't even know if you can write a CV. And honestly, I get a lot of people randomly applying, and sometimes I'll get a cover letter and they're like, "I'm so excited to work at" some random company that is not even my company's name.

Kane: "Insert here" in brackets.

Isabelle: Yeah, "insert here" in brackets. I'm like, you didn't even do that yourself. So it's harder to lie, or get someone else to do the video interview for you. So for me, that is the first actual step to get a sense of whether I should hire this person or not.

[1:16:52] A team from every continent

Kane: And do you ever hire from the eastern states or internationally?

Isabelle: Yeah, our team is actually more international than Australian. Australians are a minority at BetterLabs. We have people with all types of accents. Most of them were already living here when we hired them, but we do have people who were on a temporary visa and then ended up staying with us.

Kane: Mhm.

Isabelle: And we help them get, for example, permanent residency or something like that. We are quite open, and for the type of work that we do, diversity plays a big role. We need people thinking differently and bringing different perspectives. So it really, really helps. If I look at my team, we literally have people from every single continent.

Kane: Really?

Isabelle: And I think that is really, really cool.

Kane: How big is your team at the moment?

Isabelle: So if we look at BetterLabs, including all of the companies at every single stage, probably around 50. But I'm responsible just for the early stage teams, so that would be more like 15.

Kane: Yeah. Okay. And you have an office here in Perth?

Isabelle: Yeah. We have our office in Perth.

[1:18:59] Trade shortages and keeping staff

Kane: Do you think there's a skills shortage in WA? Do you ever feel like you have to hire internationally or from other states because you can't find people that meet the criteria of the skills and the attitude here in Perth?

Isabelle: I don't have an opinion on this. Everyone we hired was here already. They could be migrants. Most of us are migrants, just like me. I have an accent. I was already in Perth for four years when I started working at BetterLabs. So I think we do have a lot of cases like this. I don't think we've had a role that we couldn't fill yet.

Kane: The reason I ask is there's a huge tradie shortage. We're looking for like five electricians. We've had jobs on Seek for like two months. We have the highest pay rates, or on par with the highest pay rates in Perth. We pay for the premium ad. It's like $1,500 every time we have to relist. We ask our trades for referrals. We put signs up in wholesalers. It seems impossible at the moment.

Isabelle: I don't know. Yeah.

Kane: Yeah. And then the whole migrant thing, for us it's probably a little bit too complicated. The rules change every now and again. The licence issues. Obviously electrical is a licensed trade. So if someone comes over on a visa and they qualified in their country, they come here and the qualification isn't recognised. It's quite a long, drawn out, expensive process, and for a business like us, sometimes that's not affordable or not an option.

Isabelle: Yeah, it seems like there's obviously not many people here. I don't know if that's the reason why. I don't know.

Kane: Yeah. Well, I guess they should be bringing in more electricians and making it easy to validate.

Isabelle: Yeah, the migrant situation is interesting, because if you work in a field that requires a proper licence, it's just so hard to validate. I'm lucky. For us, if you tell me that you studied engineering in Uruguay, that's enough for me. If you're a software engineer, you don't need to validate anything here. If you can write good code, to be honest, I don't even care if you have a degree.

Kane: I was going to ask you that. Do the degrees actually matter? Is it more like, prove that you can do it?

Isabelle: I think it's more proof that you can do it. We do have people in the team who do not have degrees, but they have a super cool history of places that they've been, and things that they've worked on and built. And I think that demonstrates a lot more than just a degree.

Kane: So I think personal circumstances.

Isabelle: Yeah. But again, I think we're lucky in the sense that we do have a lot more flexibility than most places would have.

Kane: Yeah. And that's because other places might be licensed, or they might actually need to have a qualification, like lawyers and stuff like that, I suppose.

Isabelle: Yeah. But I think if you do have a shortage, it only means that you need to be even more conscious of the retain part, and making sure that you are offering your people what they want and what's important to them and what's going to make them stay. Making sure that you do have the right culture. I'm a big, big believer in personal relationships. I think the more you love the people around you, the more you want to stay where you work.

Isabelle: So we do go out of our way at BetterLabs to make sure that people have the right spaces and the right interactions so they can build those connections. The way that you are being managed, the leadership, what type of performance evaluation you have, what your training opportunities are. So really looking at what's important to every single team member. I'm a big, big believer that culture is what's going to make or break a company.

Kane: Yeah, I fully agree with that. You made a good point before about retention, and I suppose for us, the hardest thing is that when anyone ever leaves us, they either start their own business, which we love, we help them, or they go and work up north.

Isabelle: Yeah.

Kane: They go fly in, fly out, because obviously you can get really high money with little to no training. They'll take on sort of anyone up there. So that's our hardest thing. We're pretty much at a stage now where we have to match what they're paying, which again makes business difficult, because then we have to charge more, which then makes us non-competitive with our competitors. So it's all fun and games. [laughter] Staff retention has always been important to us. Our two top things have always been customer service and staff retention.

Isabelle: Yeah. And how can you be creative? Because sometimes you're competing with things that are outside of your control. It's hard.

Kane: I know we can't compete with mining, for example.

Isabelle: And probably from a salary perspective, right? Which is the same with you, you cannot compete with FIFO on salaries. So you need to give people something that may be more important to them than money.

[1:25:20] Taking a pay cut for meaningful work

Isabelle: And money is important, but I also believe that it's not the most important thing. Obviously situations vary, but for me, I was working as a consultant for mining, and I left that originally to go work as head of impact programs before BetterLabs. And I took a big pay cut in order to do that. And I was fine with that, because...

Kane: I suppose it depends on lifestyle and culture, because obviously lifestyle can be very different.

Isabelle: I made this decision a couple of times in my life. Even if I go back to Brazil, I was working in mergers and acquisitions, in finance, as most of my friends were, and making pretty good money. And then I dropped that, because I started to work for a small consultancy doing projects in Amazonia. I wanted to work with social impact, and I just thought that was significantly cooler than the stock market, even though I knew that from a remuneration perspective it would take a toll. And if I look at my career and my friends' careers, they were making a lot more money than I was.

Isabelle: But I still think that what I was doing was a lot more interesting and a lot more impactful than the other pathways that I could have had. So I know it's not for everyone, but it's about really understanding what alternative things you can offer to your team members, because people do value those things.

[1:27:29] Where to find Isabelle

Kane: Yeah, 100% agree. Thank you so much for coming on.

Isabelle: Thank you.

Kane: Where can people find you on social media?

Isabelle: LinkedIn is probably your best choice. So, Isabelle Charter. Say hello.

Kane: We'll put a link in the description below.

Isabelle: Yeah. And make sure that you send a note saying, "Hey, I heard you on the podcast," because otherwise it can be...

Kane: Spammed on LinkedIn, hey.

Isabelle: Yeah. [laughter] It stresses me out sometimes. [gasps]

Kane: Cool. All right. Thank you so much.

Isabelle: Thank you for the invite.

Kane: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Unlocking Business. If you've enjoyed this conversation, please take a second to like, subscribe and follow our channels. It really helps us to bring on more guests and have great conversations. If you'd like to connect with today's guest, the details are in the description below. I'm Kane Tyler Smith. I'll see you on the next one.