Building the tradie network

AN online jobs board is revolutionising the $90bn home improvement industry

Builder and Hipages user James Mason with his wife Alison at their home in Sydney’s inner west.

TECHNOLOGY is affecting all industries, whether it be news­papers going digital or the film ­industry and manufacturing, where hi-tech machines are replacing people.

While some professions such as trades appear to be untouched — after all, a house still needs to be built with tangible tools, and plumbers still need to fix pipes — it is becoming widely recognised that without access to technology and the ability to market services online, their businesses are more likely to fail.

David Vitek saw the emerging need to bring tradies online in 2004, when he and business partners Robby Sharon-Zipser and Stephen Keighery created an ­online service directory and jobs board for trade-related sectors.

“Home improvement is a $90 billion industry and we wanted to get into that,” Vitek says. “It started with people signing up for subscription products to get a web presence and get leads from the internet.”

The trio created Hipages.com.au, which now attracts 40,000 job posts every month from consumers looking for a tradesperson to do anything from tiling to painting. The site works because it ­allows tradespeople to have a page online, enabling consumers to search for people in their area for specific jobs. It also allows consumers to post jobs, with the site then finding three quotes on the work and notifying the consumer of the best quotes. It also forwards jobs to tradespeople with an option to accept the job or not.

Vitek says his team recognised the need for tradespeople to learn IT skills, when many were more likely to spend a day on the job and return home and find messages. “Back in the early days people didn’t know what Google was and it was about educating them to go online,” he says. “People were spending a lot of money on websites and it was costing them thousands of dollars. But what we were offering them was one page in a directory in their area. They could go online; they could see themselves online and they could get bookings online.”

Vitek, who has an engineering background, says tradies are good at building, fixing and ­creating things but not necessarily at marketing themselves.

A decade ago the majority were advertising in the Yellow Pages or in small print ads, offering little scope for self-promotion. Vitek says they want to be where the market is and get a consistent amount of work, or be able to arrange their work with flexible hours.

He says many in the industry are still “old school”, but are open to working with a jobs board site and are happy to ask for IT help.

“I had someone turn up with a photo album and hard copies and this is gold, because he’s got photos of work he’s done that we can use on his site,” Vitek says.

The company employs graphic designers to build pages, technology support staff and data scientists, salespeople and support services.

The site also allows tradespeople to choose jobs which are sent their way rather than having to field phone calls while they are on a roof or under a sink.

He says one tradesman on his site spends a week doing quotes and bookings, then works hard for six weeks and then comes back to the site to book a further six weeks worth of work.

With its starting base in Redfern, in inner Sydney, the company has moved to Surry Hills and expanded to central Sydney to house its 90 staff.

Vitek says since the trio launched the site it has grown to have 500,000 consumers looking for tradespeople and posting jobs. His aim is to grow it to two million members who will have access to 100,000 tradespeople across the nation. “Given the size of the market is similar to Seek and CarSales and realestate.com, we see ourselves growing to that and becoming a market leader.”

Turning on the tap of online trade jobs

HANDYMAN James Mason is looking for flexibility and the ability to work the hours he wants around family time.

Mr Mason, 36, originally trained as a carpenter before gaining his building licence. He has worked in the industry for 21 years.

After working in a partnership that ended 10 months ago, he decided to go out on his own and work around his family. “We have a daughter who’s two and a little one due in six months,” Mason says. “The aim is to be closer to home and to renovate my own place and take a bit of work and try and fit it in around that.”

Mr Mason signed up to Hipages about nine months ago as a way to gain work around Sydney’s inner west, hoping it would generate leads.

“It effortlessly generated leads within 24 hours,” he says. “Within two days I had two weeks’ worth of work lined up for me. It’s like a tap, you can turn it off, but you can say yes if you want to or no if it doesn’t work out.”

While many older tradespeople have not been quick to embrace social media marketing or websites which help them find work, Mr Mason says he is lucky to have been on the cusp of technological change.

“A lot of the older guys, the 45-plus, would find it a lot harder to market online,” he says. “Things have changed, everyone’s going online, people walk around with a smart phone and if they need the work they look for it. No one advertises in the Yellow Pages any more.”

Mr Mason says tradespeople could also be using technology to learn skills and find helpful apps. He listens to podcasts about building technology and constantly checks trade websites on his phone.

It is not just about using technology to market a trade, he says, but an opportunity to upskill and keep abreast of industry changes.