TRANSCRIPT
Unknown Speaker
This is an ohs.com.au production
Brendan Torazzi
Welcome to Episode 37 of the Australian Health and Safety Business Podcast. I'm Brendan Torazzi, the host of the show, and today I'm joined with Nick was in ski from sign on site. Good morning, Nick.
Unknown Speaker
Hey, Brendan, thanks very much for having me.
Brendan Torazzi
Now, it's been, it's been great, great to meet you over the last few weeks and hear about your story. So what does sign on site
Unknown Speaker
do? Well sign on sites and app that's designed to put the worker at the center of understanding risk on a construction site and helping with safety. So started as a check in checkout system to make sure builders knew who was on site in the case of an emergency. And then from there, we've been working over the last six years with businesses around Australia who manage construction sites to sort of do more and more safety workflows. So things like inductions and toolbox talks and stuff like
Brendan Torazzi
that. So is it a bit of a competitive space? I know there's a lot of company it's like, this is the holy grail if you can crack, you know, the the one system that manages contractors Australia wide. I know there's a few companies trying to do that. What's the competition? Like?
Unknown Speaker
I think in in terms of a safety management system view of it, it's it's pretty competitive in that there are many options for a safety manager or a head of health and safety at a at a company in Australia. But I guess I guess it comes down to how you slice and dice it. So we've tried to focus on attendance and inductions is really key workflows to focus on in terms of what builders really need to understand that at the most simplest level in terms of worker level participation and understanding of risks and stuff on on site, so we really focus on that, and and anything that touches the worker were really focused on, there's a lot more to safety, I suppose, than just those workflows. So I guess that's an area that were less focused on at the moment that other systems can come into it. But um, yeah, I guess, I guess it's a difference of approach, I suppose is our kind of competitive play, as opposed to trying to have the best induction form, which I think there's only so much orange juice to squeeze out of those oranges.
Brendan Torazzi
Fair enough. Fair enough. So I would imagine there would have to be a certain, like, building company size to make this system worthwhile. Like, is there a, is there a sweet spot where your customers started? Like, is it 50 People or 100 people, or
Unknown Speaker
that's something that's changed over time. So traditionally, and I say, traditionally, I sort of mean, five years ago, we found that the problem was most acutely felt by people who are operating many sort of commercial or fit out sites, especially when they did so over multiple cities and states. And that's where the problem around visibility of attendance and showing a cloud based record of who was inducted, at what time on what site, when you've got lots of projects going, that was a really big problem for safety managers. So not only be so many places that so many times Yeah, so like,
Brendan Torazzi
say you're based in your head offices in Sydney, or Canberra, and you're doing jobs in Melbourne, and you're using subbies. To do that this system will allow you to keep an eye on that make sure they're turning up for work.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, or another. Another kind of example might be, you might be preparing for an audit, or you may have gotten audit recommendations associated with making sure certain contents in your site specific induction and making sure that everyone who's actually on site is inducted, and has a white card, for example. So if you're in another city, and it's your responsibility to make sure your systems are being sort of adopted and used in a way to make sure those those things are being captured. How do you do that? Well, one way of doing it is driving to the place or hiring another person to go and audit that those site records and go into the cabinet. Another way is to use a cloud based system where you could do those checks from the comfort of the head office. And I think that type of opportunity is something that initially got people really interested.
Brendan Torazzi
So I mean, how did you get started on this? It's fascinating to because you've got was, was it 20,000 users or did you say oh, yeah, it's
Unknown Speaker
about 20,000 active workers on the platform and about 150 builders, Australian news The Island and creeping into some other international markets. And that's suddenly come a long way from from where we started. But the real origin story, which is with Mitch Harmer, who's the CEO and founder of sign on site, he found a problem with a, with a particular construction site that he had a personal connection, a company that he had a personal connection to. And they had a challenge, which was they were seeking FSC accreditation. So they were, they were trying to win more work with government, it's gonna be lucrative for their business. And they were it was a civil company. And they had a problem whereby they had a very, very large site. And their process they had in place as a control mechanism in terms of evacuations was not meeting the RFC auditors, I guess requirements. So their ability to understand who was on site and evacuate them in a timely manner was basically not to stand it. And so that was the trigger for Mitch, as a sort of like, experienced technologist to say there's a better way of doing this. And he came up with the concept to say, Well, can we get workers to check in with their smartphone. And that way, wherever they are, if they're 10 kilometers in the other East End of the corner of this large civil construction site, if there's an emergency, we can send them an alert, and the posts and other pre and post comparison about the current system, which was like paper and sirens versus using sign on site, I think they reduce their evacuate evacuation time by like nearly double by half. So they went from something I think was 24 minutes to 12 minutes. And that satisfied. I sent essentially, that recommendation that they needed to improve that and help was a part of the reason they were able to get that re accreditation for ofc. So that was a massive win for the business. And then after that happened, there was sorry,
Brendan Torazzi
what year was that? Nick?
Unknown Speaker
That was 2014. Okay, in Canberra with a company called hue on construction.
Brendan Torazzi
Yep. And and so they got as a result of your system that helped meet the auditors satisfaction and then onwards and upwards from there for them.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it was one of many things that they had to demonstrate. So, you know, it wasn't like, you sign on site get oh, per se. Yeah, that was a particular site specific requirement that they were being kind of checked against. But it was it was that use case that really got us on the ground? I mean, people understanding problems that then sparked something with Mitch and after we worked with you on it was a case of figuring out who else would be interested in something like that.
Brendan Torazzi
And so I mean, these software projects, they can get incredibly complicated. And, you know, it's, it's sort of like, how long is a piece of string? What, how long did it take to develop? You know, the initial that initial system? Was it a long project? Or was it just something very basic to get you off the ground? And, and then obviously, you've built on that.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so we, we have always maintained and set out to adopt, I guess, and a, an agile methodology. And a big part of that is, you know, focusing on communication and the customer, and getting workable software live, rather than, you know, contract negotiation focused approach to project management, or like writing a really, really detailed specification that we go and get done. And I guess that the reason why that philosophy is powerful is because if you can get something in the hands of users your ability to learn from, you know, a beta testers first go at trying to sign on to a site with your first version of your app. It's, it's gonna give you the insight that you need early to manage risks or make changes. Whereas if you kind of scurry away behind a blanket for a year, and then rip off the cloak, that are here it is.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, you might, you might have gone down the wrong rabbit hole. We this is what we think you need, but it's in reality, it's something completely different.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's right. And we still take that approach. Today, we release, we release new apps to the App Store, and update our front end and back end. So like the web service every two weeks, okay. So we're always trying to continue to have a culture of continuous improvement. So that's hasn't been something that's changed. So it was a case of really getting a minimum viable product as they sort of call it into the hands of workers and site managers and using that as a starting point to say, look, this isn't done. We know it's not done, but let's try and do one little part of this workflow. Get your feedback. improve that and, and keep doing that.
Brendan Torazzi
So that that must that must have been exciting back in 2014. When you what was the moment where you thought, hey, we might be onto something here?
Unknown Speaker
I think for I think for Mitch that that Office of the Federal safety commission and finding was a really black and white obvious win, that was easy to rally around. And in terms of activities, like building a team, or hiring more people and building a team around the company. And defining a mission, which is to sort of put the best technology in the workers of every are in the pocket of every worker on site in Australia, that really crystallized that that moment, and created an opportunity to build a lot of momentum. So I think for the early stages of the company, and I've been at site on site for four years, so I wasn't there for that for that moment. But I can speak to the reason that that made me excited, which was the, I think the industry has a really gets a really bad rap in terms of its technology adoption, which is something that's been changing heaps over the last 10 years. But something that I think is actually a myth that I get, I guess I've sort of busted, at least for me is that the industry is not innovative. And it's very obvious if you go out to sign and talk to anyone, whether they're a concrete or a plumber, or a site manager, or foreman or whatever. They're solving problems all the time in real time. They're having to, you know, work with a team, get people who are good at certain things coordinated in a way to get the job done. Now, they're motivated to do that for money. And they need their profit margin and stuff. But they're actually really innovative people. So I didn't really know that when I started. But one of the things that we tried to focus on was getting out and talking to customers. And through that process of meeting a lot of people who, some of who were using our products, some of whom weren't ready to try it yet. I sort of that really clicked for me. And I was like, yeah, that they're really open to this. And people are writing them off as being maybe a customer type in the technology space that's too hard to work with, or they just won't get it. And I realized that wasn't true. So for me, that was the moment I realized there's an untapped potential here. There's a whole bunch of problem solving, solving complicated things all of the time out on site, and technology is a great way to assist in that problem solving. So yeah, I saw that as an opportunity to work with work with this industry that I hadn't really been involved in before. And yeah, I guess the rest is, has been history. Well,
Brendan Torazzi
I guess when you when you think of trainees and builders, and they're all very hands on practical people. So if you've got a solution that's going to make their life easier. And they can see that, why wouldn't they jump on?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. They're very practice. From my experience, everyone's quite practical. And the other great thing about those type of people is, I've found they give you really good feedback quickly. Yeah. And they don't sort of sugarcoat it. Gonna find out?
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, yeah. So. So that probably goes both ways. If it's, if it's really good, or crap, they're gonna tell you exactly what works and what doesn't work. And why doesn't work? If that's okay, that's
Unknown Speaker
right. And, you know, they're committed to the process, if they can see that it could work. But it just makes it makes that collaboration actually really, really good. Because you need to be doing those iterative loops of getting the feedback and other customer types. You know, for example, in other industries, you get a lot of, it's hard to get the real, the real feedback. So you might get a lot of, it's just not a priority for us right now. Or I'll let you know next week. And it's because that person's busy, or they don't have time for you. And maybe the real reason is they just don't care enough about the problem you're solving. But I found with the trades on site, especially they'll just tell you that it just saves everyone a whole bunch of time. Yes. really efficient and great.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, I mean, that's that's the thing with the construction industry, there are a lot of salt of the earth characters. And yeah, there's no pretension. That's what I've found, anyway, being involved with construction that it's, you know, you'll get the real deal and there's, there still can be politics, but you know, it's though they'll tell you how it is really.
Unknown Speaker
And they're always willing to have the guy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What
Brendan Torazzi
I was curious to find out about because you guys are based in the AC T. How do you think that, you know, being an ICT based company how because it's, it's often called an island in the middle of New South Wales. How is that contributed to sign on site success, as do you think it's been a you know, I guess the ICT being a pilot pilot ground perhaps and being able to perfect your product and and move out from there? Have you thought about how that may have contributed? Like your location?
Unknown Speaker
Yep. So, Australia has a history of, you know, technology companies coming from both, you know, big city hubs, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, et cetera. But also of, of, I guess, more regional hubs, you only have to look at other companies like safety culture, for example. And, I guess, for the ICT in the sign on site context, something that became apparent really quickly, and it's similar in places like Perth, and Adelaide and have Wellington's and other Willington in crisis churches and other places that I found this personally where if you, if you get something right in the industry, you'll very quickly spread from a word of mouth perspective in areas where the builders are very, very connected. So in the AC T there, there are many builders, but and they all really they know each other, and they really know what each other is sort of doing. Yeah, that's partly from a competitive, you know, perspective. But it's also really good from a collaborative perspective. And so if you can solve a problem that's universal, your idea and the opportunity to get introductions, etc, can can spread really quickly. And I think that was really important commercially, for sign on site early on, was actually being in Canberra was an advantage, because once we got some early adopters of the system, in particular, human and maintainer that those sorts of really showed the industry oh, these people are doing something industry. Interesting here, like what sign on site, tell me about why you using it, what kind of problems does it solve? So, in that way, I think starting an AC T was a huge advantage. And I I imagine that would have been harder to achieve in a larger market where people are still connected, but not to the same extent based on the kind of sighs I suppose so that was a really great thing about being in ICT.
Brendan Torazzi
So what you were saying you came on four years ago, what was the pivot point for you coming on board,
Unknown Speaker
I was working at a really big accounting and consulting company that I personally thought was the, the thing that I wanted to do. And after trying that for a few years, and working with different companies, including some smaller, more innovative technology companies, I sort of got to peer into their businesses and saw the exciting things that these founders and sort of technologists were doing with their careers in their lives. And I realized in that moment that I really wanted to do that. And being a consultant and making recommendations wasn't quite the same as doing it.
Brendan Torazzi
So yep, I want to call face.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's right. So I, I, I had met Mitch, the founder, previously in Canberra at some Canberra Innovation Network meetings, which is where our office is based in the Canberra Innovation Network, which is a bit of a shout out, it's a great, great hub for new companies and sharing knowledge about starting your own ventures and stuff. So had a coffee with him told him how I felt. And at that point, Simon site, you know, still had, I think, maybe 10 to 20 customers, and really needed to focus on a go to market plan to get the attention of and work with builders, not just in the ICT, but across all of Australia. That was like the next step in the mission. So that was perfect for what I was looking for. And I yeah, I moved. I moved on to my mates couch. Yeah, stop paying rent. And Mitch had already been, you know, sort of living that lifestyle for a little while and had got his, you know, tuna lunches down to an art like a $2.16 lunch every day so that it was really just an all in kind of all in on black moment at the casino, right where we both felt. There's something like it's worth putting a bet on and just worked really intensely on trying to trying to get that go to market strategy working. So that was a really fun experience. And despite the maybe the level of difficulty at the time, it was really fun. Yep. And so
Brendan Torazzi
that was your sort of first foray into Euro own business.
Unknown Speaker
I had tried other things before, actually, in Canberra was one of the others co founding a company that was trying to teach university students how to trade on the Australian Stock Exchange. Okay. And we were we made a product that we were trying to sell in two universities. And that ended up being really complicated and convoluted. And we had, as it turned out, it wasn't a very good sales strategy. And so we ran out of money, and we had to stop. So I had sort of tried that once before. And, but I saw something different with Mitch and with sign on site, so that those early days are really fun. And I got to get both hands on to the problem and kind of go all in. And that was what I was looking for at that time. So it was a great, great experience. And I look back on it very, very fondly, and learned a lot of a lot of, I think, important business lessons from that, and a lot about the industry.
Brendan Torazzi
And what's the team size now?
Unknown Speaker
So we're at about just at a high today. So we're at 1818 People across Australia,
Brendan Torazzi
right? That's great. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. And I guess you've got your software, people in house making constantly tweaking code and making updates and all that sort of stuff.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's correct. So we have, we have a team of five, in terms of product and engineering. And then we have sales and marketing, operational support, technical support. And also we have a four person customer success team. So every time we introduce sign on site to a new customer, it's really important that they kind of get help in not just learning how to use the technology, but understanding the change management process that's going to have to happen on their sites moving from paper to an app based solution. So we, it's really important to us to help them with that,
Brendan Torazzi
it's really hard, really hard to get people to change the way they do things. So I think that's really, really important with software in particular.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's right. It's not just press this button in this order. It's also what strategies you have in place to help those people who might find you know, using their phone, or smartphone for work for the first time ever, like that, that has its own set of challenges. So investing in, in that team in our company was a really big goal. And once we could afford, once we grew our customer base, that became something we noticed it was really important, like, every new customer has to think about how they're going to roll this out how they're going to get adoption, how they're going to, you know, meet those rollout kind of challenges, and how do they measure whether it's working or not? That teams really important?
Brendan Torazzi
And how does the pricing work on a visitor? Like, how many staff you're managing? Or is it a flat rate? Or how does all that work? I mean, if anyone's interested, we'll, we'll put you in contact, we'll get your contact details, but you don't have to be specific on pricing, but just tell us roughly how, how it works.
Unknown Speaker
So it's, it's something we've experimented with a lot over the life of the company. And I think the model we're at now seems to provide the most flexibility for different business types, which is something that's really good. So we now excuse me, we now price based on the turnover of the company and the number of sites that they would be managing at any particular time concurrently. So for example, we might look at a company who just does two big commercial builds a year. And we'll have a look, we have like a sort of price calculator where we input their turnover and, and the fact that they're managing to sites, and that'll give us a monthly subscription price or an annual subscription price. So depending on the options that make more sense for the company, some people like to pay a year upfront, and we offer a discount on that as well. Other people like the the ongoing monthly structure. So it's a subscription model. So it really just depends on on those two factors. But doing it that way means we can price a LendLease project building a new hospital, and we can price a fit out company who are building new bars and restaurants and we can price a company that's building petrol stations, and we can price a company that's building you know, 20 high rise buildings across New Zealand concurrently, and the price hopefully makes sense for both of us. Yep. Without having to sort of charge a residential builder. same amount of money that we make.
Brendan Torazzi
When you think about it, it's sort of your system is like insurance. And that's how builders insurance and construction insurance work as well. It works on turnover and, and what your risk what your risk levels are at, at any one point in time. So that completely makes sense. And, and obviously customers are buying, so you must be doing something right. Or subscribing I should say.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I think and I think that model just at both ends of the spectrum, makes it work better, like larger customers will often have more support, and that customer success kind of implementation stuff that I talked about. And that obviously costs time and money for for us. So it's just about making sure it makes sense for for both parties. And we often do, you know, it's it's not uncommon that in that pricing process, we'll do some discovery with the builder to understand things like okay, well, why you buy, or what's the biggest problems you have right now? And what are some metrics we can put around what that problem looks like in terms of time lost, or potential bad things happening, and how much that could cost the company and then measuring through time with sign on site, how we're improving those key metrics, and then what that means in terms of the value they're getting? Yep. And that really helps businesses understand, I guess, why they might be the real drive business drivers behind why they might be looking at a system like that. And sometimes, not all the time. But sometimes you go through that process, and you realize, oh, hey, this, you know, this customer, maybe they want to buy a new system, but they either need to do a little bit more work in understanding actually, what are the business drivers behind this decision? Or how much does this problem hurt right now? And that may mean they only use a subset of the tools available inside On site initially?
Brendan Torazzi
Yep. And then grow into it once they get the hang of it? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
So if, if it's not for them right now, or if all the tools are in terms of the stuff they pay for aren't the things on the menu that they need, then, you know, we'll just we're flexible around managing, managing that. So? Yeah, and we've one other thought on that is, we're really anti, like per seat license. And the reason is, is because we've seen how damaging that can be from a safety and compliance perspective where, you know, you might be paying for 1000 people can register for this project, and the 1001 person arrives on site and tries to get inducted. And something I've seen happen before is, either there's no budget to pay for the next level up. Yeah. And so someone who's been inducted ages ago, might get like, removed from the system in order for that seat to become available. And then there comes a question, well, what happens to that person's records? Yeah, what if they come back to site and we just never want to put our customers in that situation. So it's just unlimited. Like, if you have it, you have it, you have it for as much as you want, as many people like, it's free to use for the for the worker, you they just have to download the app. And the more the merrier,
Brendan Torazzi
like, sounds awesome.
Unknown Speaker
We'd be stoked with however many people are going to be on site that could be 10 people that could be 400. In some cases, like not our we're not trying to nickel and dime people because the 400 and first person came on site, it's like you're buying this system for this outcome, which is safety and compliance. And that should be able to work no matter how many people you have.
Brendan Torazzi
Brant. Okay, Nick, well, we're gonna wrap up the interview. Now, if people want to get in contact with you and learn a bit more about sign on site, what's the best way to do that?
Unknown Speaker
The best the best way if you're in the industry, and you and you want some more information on the product, and to try and make an assessment about whether it could help you solve any problems on site associated with the safety compliance is to go to sign on site.com.au. And you can download a free information pack that breaks down all of the things we do and how, how they help. And from there, if you want to schedule time, for a demo, we offer demo accounts as well. So we'll actually give you the opportunity to use the system at your office, for example, with a couple of key people and try it yourself as if you were the workers to get a feel for what it would look like if you implement it out on site. So that would be my recommendation. If you're interested in any of the future work that we're planning to do. So the current thing we're going to be focusing on at the moment is Permit to Work systems and how that can integrate into the app. So if you're interested in Permit to Work systems, or that's a particular challenge for your business or business you can consult to then just email me, which is Nick at sign on site.com.au. And we can sort of start a conversation, the more information and feedback we have around how that workflow works in real life out on site, the better our product will be. So we're really keen to get a variety of different experience and opinions in shaping what that feature will look like.
Brendan Torazzi
That's great. I can't wait. Well, thanks very much for coming on the show.
Unknown Speaker
Thanks so much, Brendan. Cheers.
Unknown Speaker
You've been listening to an ohs.com.au production.
Brendan Torazzi
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