Jaddan Comerford still remembers the first time he heard Riptide by Vance Joy in late 2012. That insanely catchy ukulele riff, then the vocals wailing about dentists and dark rooms and Michelle Pfeiffer, joined later by some of the merriest percussion ever committed to record. “I was like, ‘Holy shit! This is pretty special’,” he says.

Comerford, whose brother is a mate of Joy, was one of the first people to hear a song that’s been listened to 2.5 billion times. Joy, whose real name is James Keogh, recorded the song in a backyard shed using $700 he’d saved while working as a gardener. Within weeks of hearing the track, Melbourne-based Comerford was managing the artist. It proved to be a very good move; the commercial success of Vance Joy has underwritten the growth of Comerford’s Unified record label and artist services group into an international, 90-person business that will turn over $30 million this year.