Zac Martin-Taylor, Trent Small, Sandra Richards, Stewart Locke: Townsville’s top entrepreneurs
From businesses developed in response to cyclones to one owned and operated by a veteran capturing life from the sky — meet the entrepreneurs making a difference in Townsville.
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Townsville is a hotbed of entrepreneurial talent, and Smart Precinct NQ has been instrumental to help businesses and entrepreneurs learn and grow.
The not-for-profit orgnaisation was established in 2019 as a space for businesses and entrepreneurs to learn and grow.
Since forming, Smart Precinct NQ — funded by the Townsville City Council and Advance Queensland, has engaged with more than 500 business and entrepreneurs through mentoring, workshops and accelerator programs, events, and grant programs.
We’ve puts the spotlight on six entrepreneuers who are making it in a competitive business environment.
Zak Martin-Taylor
Rising Sun FPV is a small business based in Townsville. It’s veteran owned and operated and established to support the North Queensland First Person View Race community. Rising Sun FPV sell quality drone products, including spare parts, CNC services, bespoke CAD, 3D modelling and 3D printing.
What initially inspired you to establish the business?
A lack of available parts for drone racing and 3D printer parts in the region.
What has been your most fulfilling business achievement?
Selling one of our frames to an overseas customer.
What are the top three traits to success in your field?
Don’t be afraid to go against the grain and invent something new even if it’s not needed, if I want it then other people out there will want it.
Face every problem with an open mind and a can do attitude, if there’s a will there’s a way. Embrace change.
What has been one of your biggest hurdles to success in your business development?
Understanding business governance and obligations.
What did you do to overcome it?
Connect with other businesses from various
industry’s to see how they are doing it and not being afraid to admit I have no idea what’s going on.
What’s the single best guidance you could give other young people wanting to establish a business?
Think of a catchy business name. Find something you are passionate about and can see yourself doing it for many years down the track.
Who has been your biggest inspiration?
My family and friends who have supported my journey since leaving the Defence force.
Trent Small
Solar Relief is an Australian designed, manufactured and patented portable power supply (PPS) system. The business was developed by Trent Small after Cyclone Yasi caused widespread devastation and electricity outages. Solar Relief units are a fully portable off-grid power solution which uses solar energy, among others, to provide a clean, surge-protected power source for every device.
What initially inspired you to establish the business?
Solving a problem experienced post cyclone yasi. Then realising the effects of energy poverty globally.
What has been your most fulfilling business achievement?
Seeing the impact that my idea and solutions can provide particularly in places such as Fiji post Cyclone Winston and current projects such as Kenya where the Solar Relief PPS can save lives every day by keeping medical devices operational.
What are the top three traits to success in your field?
Continual R&D to keep up with advancements in technology. Look for a niche in the market. Timing is everything!
What has been one of your biggest hurdles to success in your business development?
Having the idea, being able to see the solution but technology and the world did not have the answers.
What did you do to overcome it?
Looked to continually improve the product, did not try to commercialise too early and utilised the Australian Defence Force to field trial and provide feedback. Listen to the feedback and modify and adapt the PPS to improve it. Trial new technology advancements as they become available.
What’s the single best guidance you could give other young people wanting to establish a business?
Seek advice, network, listen and never stop learning
Who has been your biggest inspiration?
My Dad.
Sandra Richards
QPLAS was set up to help solve the problem of waste. The business, of which Sandra Richards is chairperson and founder, manufacturers a wide range of products such as compression moulding sheets, heavy duty cable covers, viewing platforms, rail sleepers, foam extrusion, flat sheeting for sound barriers, layer pads and wall support for the mining industry. The hardwood waste (including heads of trees, milling residue) and recycled plastic mix provide an innovative solution which is waterproof, fire resistant, rot resistant, pest resistant, extremely long lasting and cost effective.
What initially inspired you to establish the business?
Like most people who care about the environment, the huge amount of plastics going to landfill and the oceans is alarming and finding a solution to repurpose both the large amount of agricultural plastic waste and combining it with hardwood waste to make something useful seemed a good idea.
What has been your most fulfilling business achievement?
Overcoming the problems on the land of drought, fire, flood, and low commodity prices to educate our five children. (My husband I were formerly beef and sheep and wool producers).
What are the top three traits to success in your field?
I believe that having a passion for what you do is important. It is also good to have tenacity and perseverance.
What has been one of your biggest hurdles to success in your business development?
The unknown factor called X. This includes Covid and lack of promised working capital.
What did you do to overcome it?
By hanging in and looking at other possibilities in order to go forward.
What’s the single best guidance you could give other young people wanting to establish a business?
Learn how to manage stress and establish a good work/life balance.
Who has been your biggest inspiration?
Members of the medical profession and medical researchers who do so much to help mankind.
Stewart Locke
Is the managing director of Krieger Industries which is a veteran owned and operated business selling Australian manufactured nylon products.
What initially inspired you to establish the business?
Piggy backing off Scorpion Projects retail store, Director of Manufacturing (Ben Holland) and Managing Director (myself) seen that there was a gap in Australian made tactical nylon products. We wanted to bring the tactical manufacturing industry back onto Australian shores rather than having products that are supposed to be suitable for our defence and law
enforcement being made overseas.
What has been your most fulfilling business achievement?
To be honest, our greatest achievement is networking with people who have a wealth of knowledge and experience. We have implemented a new employment pathway which focuses on our multicultural refugees and immigrants. This is supported by Townsville
Multicultural Support Group. We currently have one employed from this program, and
there are more on the radar when future projects become available. If we are to put it down to a project, we are contracted to an ANF contract and were also one of two finalists (in-part) in the QLD Police tender which was a significant feat for such a small company.
What are the top three traits to success in your field?
Innovation, Australian Made and consistency.
What has been one of your biggest hurdles to success in your business
development?
Limited government assistance for start-ups. We had to rely on ourselves to grow with some assistance from people who were willing to give their time to help.
What did you do to overcome it?
Remain persistent and networked with the right people who guided us. In the end it was us as a company who had to implement changes, systems etc to grow. The individuals who helped us were instrumental in achieving this by doing essential ground-work and networking of their own to position us correctly within industry.
What’s the single best guidance you could give other young people wanting to
establish a business?
Research, commitment and never doubt yourself.
Who has been your biggest inspiration?
There are several people who have been pivotal, however, the inspiration comes from our famillies. They are what drives us to keep going and want to prove that what we set out for can be achieved.
Govinda Panddey
Is the CEO of Rockfield and Co-founder of LiXiA. Rockfield is a specialist engineering firm applying cutting edge technology to assess, maintain and optimise largescale infrastructure. Rockfield incubated within James Cook University in the 90s and spun out in 2000. Rockfield initially leveraged its engineering capabilities to build digital twin models for clients in the sugar industry in North Queensland. The company’s client base today has expanded nationally and into other industries, including mining, public infrastructure and rail. LiXiA is a new tech company formed through the collaboration of Rockfield with James Cook University.
What initially inspired you to establish the business?
When the mining downturn started to hit our industry hard around 2013, Rockfield had to pivot and pivot quickly to build its resilience and sustainability by leveraging our core skills in advanced analysis. We realised that there were literally trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure assets worldwide that were at their end of design life.
The current method of managing the integrity of these assets is primarily through visual inspections and simplified desktop engineering assessments. Back then, Internet of Things (IoT) had already started to emerge as a powerful technology, making an impact on a number of industries. Despite its size and influence, the infrastructure industry has always been very traditional, rigid and resistant to change. We saw this as a great opportunity to connect IoT with this industry and accelerate it into the digital era. We focused our university connections and began collaborating with CSIRO Data61. Through these efforts and active engagement with the asset owners, Rockfield built an InfraTech arm providing a full technology stack to enable data driven asset integrity management.
What has been your most fulfilling business achievement?
To lead successful and highly distinctive engineering businesses from Townsville and work with a wide range of blue-chip clients both nationally and internationally.
What are the top three traits to success in your field?
The tech industry is high pace one. A window for any opportunity is not very long. A customer centric approach and early customer engagement is absolutely key as well as a willingness to pivot along the way. That said, customer engagement at times can be a painfully slow process, particularly when you are dealing with a large company with multiple stakeholders. The top three traits are agility, humility and perseverance.
What has been one of your biggest hurdles to success in your business development?
Although we are getting an incredible amount of support from all quarters, the risk aversity of big organizations is still a major hurdle. This can get further compounded by the procurement policies that can hinder start-ups vehemently attempting to penetrate markets.
What did you do to overcome it?
The customer discovery process is very critical to overcome this. Identifying lead users, finding and empowering champions within these big organisations, co-creating a solution with them and demonstrating value through small trials are critical to the success of any start-ups. The good news is that the level of sophistication within the asset intensive industries has gone up significantly other the past few years. It’s about finding the key drivers of change within these organisations.
What’s the single best guidance you could give other young people wanting to establish a business?
With the democratisation of technology and easy access to funding, anyone with a great idea can establish a business. My advice to young entrepreneurs is that you’ve got to find your first customer first and be open and agile enough to co-create a solution with them.
Who has been your biggest inspiration?
My dad has always been a great source of inspiration for me. He started his early life fighting extreme poverty but ended up building a construction empire in Nepal through sheer courage, determination and hard work. Yet, he has always lived a very humble life largely detached of the material world. I get inspired by leaders with a bigger sense of purpose.
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Originally published as Zac Martin-Taylor, Trent Small, Sandra Richards, Stewart Locke: Townsville’s top entrepreneurs
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