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What if your company culture wasn’t just an HR buzzword but the secret weapon to scaling your business?
Welcome to Kan Talk Kulture, the podcast that dives deep into how remarkable company cultures are intentionally built and how they can transform your team, your business, and your bottom line.
Hosted by Kylie Anne Neal, founder of Kan Kulture and a passionate expert in people, culture, and leadership, this show is designed for business owners, CEOs, HR professionals, and anyone who believes that empowered people are the key to long-term success.
Each episode features real conversations with inspiring CEOs, business leaders, and culture champions who share how they’ve shaped their team environments alongside case studies, practical tips, and bold questions that challenge the status quo.
Whether you're looking to boost employee engagement, create a high-performance team, or align your people with your vision, this podcast will help you connect the dots between culture and growth.
At Kan Kulture, we believe in Kindness, Understanding, Learning, Trust, Uniqueness, Respect, and Evolving, and this podcast brings those values to life.
If you're ready to turn your team into your biggest brand ambassadors and create a workplace people love, this is the podcast for you.
Find out more at www.kankulture.com
Hi, I am Kylie Anne Neal, founder of Kan Kulture and welcome to Kan Talk Kulture. In this podcast, I sit down with some of Australia's most progressive founders and CEOs. To explore the heart of their company cultures, what drives them, what they value, and what it's really like to work for the companies they lead.
You'll also find occasional episodes packed with practical HR insights to help you build safer, stronger, and more trusted workplaces. So whether you're a new team member, getting to know your workplace. Curious about creating remarkable company culture or just wanting to know more about implementing HR best practice.
You are in the right place. Let's dive in.
Hi there, and welcome back to Kan Talk Kulture. I'm your host Kylie Anne, and today I'm joined by. Jesse Tree, the owner and CEO of AusCoast Yacht Management, a Gold Coast based company making serious waves in the marine industry. With over 15 years of experience, Jesse brings a lifetime of knowledge, hands-on expertise, and a genuine passion for maintaining some of the finest vessels on our coast.
From yacht detailing and project management to full service vessel care. Aus Coast has built a strong reputation for professionalism, trust, and team culture. Jesse, welcome to the Kan Talk Kulture podcast.
Thanks for having me, Kylie.
So let's hear a bit about you. First, can you just talk us through your background and what made you think of starting AusCoast Management?
I think I realized that I wasn't wired to work for anyone. That's the first thing, but no. I started on the container ships and tugboats pretty well straight after I finished my apprenticeship. So I finished an apprenticeship in carpentry 20, what was it, 2012. Went and worked on the went and worked in the commercial sector on the ship, and then I transitioned into the white boats in, I think it was 2016.
And then started running a couple of private boats for some individuals outta Melbourne. And then and then myself and my partner, I met Jamie in 2017 and then we hitched up in, in 2018. Then and then we both decided we didn't want to, we didn't want to be crew on yachts. So then essentially we were looking to come home and stop living outta a suitcase.
So I started with a company called Ocean Alexander More Australia, in, I think it was 2000 and 2018. It was as a service warranty manager. And then yeah, and then I realized a lot of the warranty claims that we're getting for these yachts were due to lack of plan of preventative maintenance.
So I saw this gap in the market and I thought, bugger, I'll give it a go. So I registered the business 2020, it was, and then end of 2020, start of 2021.
Fantastic. So talk to me more about what that gap in the market was that you identified.
It always baffled me that we'd hand over a 10 plus million dollar yacht.
And say, call me when there's a winery issue. It just, to me, it didn't make sense. I kept pushing this agenda for the plan and preventative maintenance go here we are tipping champagne over the front of the boat and congratulating these people. But there was no sort of support in my eyes and
what
you needed to do to keep the boat at a higher value so your warranty claims weren't so bad, et cetera, et cetera.
So then I, yeah, I saw this bit of a gap in the market. I realized when I started playing around on private boats, none of 'em had been maintained especially considering I'd come from the commercial world where everything was just, to a topnotch, degree of maintenance.
But yeah. And then, yeah, that's where I went out went out and to bugger, I'll give it a go, and started looking at different software packages all around the world. And and then come to this company called Sea Flux, which was a startup company in in New Zealand. And then I thought, bugger, I go and start up this sea flux scene, oh, sorry.
Start my business in conjunction with sea flux. And and then start systematically building, a maintenance system for these bites. But we diverted onto the sea flux scene and then we shied away from it. Yeah. Fantastic. Soon thereafter. But
yeah. So it's quite unique what
you do.
Oh, look, I think it's unique in the scale. Like it's quite easy to, it's quite easy to run and maintain just one boat for a skipper. It, it becomes quite difficult when you've got a fleet. 'cause when you're a skipper of one boat, you know that boat intricately. But then when you've got.
30 something boats you manage. That's where it gets really tricky. 'cause you lose that connection of that one-on-one with the boat. So that's been our biggest difficulty with the business is trying to get everyone to take boat ownership sort of thing. So that's the direction the business has taken recently.
But but yeah.
Yeah. Fantastic. So over the last five years you have. Grown a team.
Yep.
You have engaged can Kulture to help you with your hr. Yeah. But let's talk about Aus Coast Yacht Management from a team perspective. Talk us through how would you summarize the growth of the team?
As with any businesses, always ups and downs, but talk, what comes to mind when you think about the team journey over the last five years?
Look, we've had some peaks and troughs, but one thing I've realized is with the team, with team, with trades, whatever we deal with, if you make it fun.
You get a better result. So you gotta make it fun. Like the banter we've got in our business, as you've seen is borderline legal, but borderline. Yeah. Yeah. But but you spend so much time with these people, the office girl. I spend more time with megs than I do my partner.
Yeah. So you need to have that sort of, that banter. You need to have a bit of fun. You need to create that Kulture where. They're with you more than your own family. You need to have a bit of fun. Yep. And that's what I've really tried to build. And one thing, one thing I learned LA or over the last sort of three years in particular as a team scaled up was you needed to dangle a carrot.
I've mentioned this many times, but you needed to dangle a carrot. You can't have people come to work and do the same monotonous shit. Every single day there needs to be light at the end of the tunnel. Yep. And we had a huge staff rollover probably up until 18 months ago. And then obviously that's when you guys come on the scene and and yeah, I was trying to build something.
Took a young guy from being a yacht detailer right through to becoming a skipper. Yep. So that's essentially what we've tried to do.
Yeah. Fantastic. And you have a lot of passion for the career pathway that we have. Created creating is in motion. But I think there it is a real passion of yours and it is a real joy for people like me that come from a people and Kulture perspective.
To see that passion in a business owner, to wanna create something that hasn't been done before in the industry, wanting to create something really unique. Just talk us through briefly, like what the career pathway is for you.
Like I said, we, when I started on a yacht in I think it was 2017, essentially, I went down for a job interview down in down on Sydney Harbor.
It was on the 30th of December. Yeah, I think it was 2017, might've been 16 and went down, as applying for this skipper's role. And essentially I'd never worked on yachts. I didn't, I had a passion for yachts, but I didn't know them intricately, I didn't know the systems and and basically I had the tickets to run these boats but I didn't know much much other than that.
I went down for this job interview and the and the owner of the yacht said, yeah, beautiful. Everything checks out. Can you start tomorrow? And it was New Year's Eve on Sydney Harbor, which is as a skipper, the most manic, night of the year. And yeah. So I basically started the next day and it was like a holy shit moment.
All of a sudden you're this kid, and then the next minute you're, you got 30 guests on a boat in Sydney Harbor and you know the boat's worth how many millions of dollars. And no one had taught me. How to run it. Like I knew how to drive. I knew enough about it but at the same time, I just, my whole career ever since has been.
No one teaches you how to actually run a boat. Yeah. No one teaches you the ins and out and the outs. Like everything that I've learned, I've done my own research. And I've bounced off the trades and in particular that role I had with Alexander Marine in the warranty sector, you only learn from failures and the issues that you have.
As frustrating as it was at the time every time we've had a problem with the boat, you walk out with a bit more knowledge. Yep. So that sort of got me thinking when obviously I started the business and the business started to scale up and we were having issues with staff retention. I I felt buggery, we had some really good young fellas that, that that I could see were gonna go places, but Yep.
We needed to guide them. And that's when I started thinking about the career pathways and start as a yacht detailer. Hate to break it to 'em, but you gotta start at the bottom. It's a shit job, but you gotta do it because as you move up the ladder, the guys that, that are gonna work below you.
Yeah. They're gonna try and pull the wool over your eyes and I excuse I have done it, and you can't talk and you can't talk with experience if you haven't done it. Yep. So basically that's what we've tried to build and I think it's been a winning formula. We're not there yet.
Yeah. We've, it'll be evolving tool. I'm a hundred. But yeah it'll never stop evolving. But I think it's a bit of a foundation for getting young guys to, young guys and girls to work up to where we wanna be.
Yeah. Have you been around yachts your whole life? Where did this passion come from?
I was lucky. I grew up on the Bayside in Brisbane. Pretty privileged, an upbringing. I was a tinny rat from, I think 12 Christmas when I was 12 or 11 or whatever it was. Mum and dad or Santa Claus bought me a 3.1 meter tre sniper with a six horsepower mariner on the back. That's where it all started.
And and yeah, I was lucky. I grew up, like I said, Bayside, Brisbane, and and my parents' house was actually on a little private marina, so there was actually 16 bursts out the back of mom and dad's place and, and yeah, I was the annoying kid that every time someone walked down to their boat, I would fucking just roll down.
You need a deck, so yeah. That's where it all started. And then, yeah, and then I always knew I'd end up in a career with boats. That's just, yeah, it was a, it was an absolute given, like when I started my apprenticeship. I was counting down the days till it was over so I could go on stolen boats.
And then literally the day I walked out of my out of the blue dog training for my carpentry apprenticeship, I walked straight outta there. I went home and I remember I booked and paid for my skipper's ticket down in Sydney. Yeah. So I'd saved up I think I'd saved up 13 and a half thousand dollars at the end of my apprenticeship.
And my course was 12, so I was gone. But then yeah, went down to Sydney, did my master five in, oh, that must have been 2012, I think it was. Then and then started the career on the yachts.
Yeah.
Amazing.
That was good. And what part of that passion do you love about going to work every day?
I think the business has got to where it is because of the passion that I've got. And that's been quite a tricky thing to scale up a business, not necessarily having people with the same sort of passion. That's been quite a tricky thing, but, but trying to put forward those key players that do have the same passion Yeah.
And trying to put 'em in roles where they're stimulated and the clients feel like they're getting best bang for dollar
and you not just maintain the boats when they're maed, but you also take them out on charter. Yeah.
Yeah. That's obviously my background. Yeah. As a skipper. So that's essentially what I get paid to do.
But yeah. Yeah we've got crew. We've got crew in Airly Beach, we've got, crews basically full time on these boats. We've got a couple of boats heading to New Zealand at the end of this year. Yeah. And and yeah, we got stews and deck and skippers and whatever. Yep. Onboard these things, but yeah.
Yep, that's what we do. Tell us what it's like out there when you are on a charter.
Very long days. It's, that's the perks of the job that it really is. What you don't realize with working on a yacht, a lot of the time your work starts when the yacht gets back to the dock. People have got this vision, like I said before, where they're the ones sitting in the spa bath and in Airly Beach and drinking pina coladas.
It's, sorry for the blow down hands, but it's not like that. But, yeah it's long days. It's, one-on-one with the customers. It's bloody brilliant. I love it. I miss it. But yeah, I wish I could do it more.
Yeah. Yeah. And what are the plans for A CYM?
It used, obviously, it financially used to stimulate me, but I'm not driven by that as much anymore.
I'll be honest. I'm, I don't really care about the money side of things. What, what makes me really excited is seeing. Guys that were the same as me. Yeah. Moving up through the ranks and having the support to be able to do what I've done that, that makes me excited. Yeah. Like we've got a couple of young fellows at the moment, one in particular who's come forward and stepped off the line and and yeah.
Watching him grow in the short period of time, that's been exciting. Yeah. And watching, watching the clients. The positive feedback from the clients has been a big thing. Yeah. Amazing. Oh yeah. That's been brilliant.
Yeah. Yeah. If we can talk about, your leadership style, I'm gonna get a bit HR on you for a moment, but the more that you know, you have so much passion and you have so much passion for the yachts, but you also have so much passion for the pathways that you want to offer for your team. And being able to bottle that up.
And it's not like you wanna. Replicate yourself. The world doesn't need two. Jessie, that's a shame. But what do you think is important? If you think about leadership and you think about the team leads and the way that you want them to show up for the whole team every day what's important to you?
What kind of traits do you want them to exhibit? Because. It is the essence of a CYM. The
traits. The traits. The traits. I think, I haven't nailed this yet, obviously, but you gotta look at how to get the most outta people. That's quite a difficult thing when you're dealing with so many different personalities as we've seen recently.
Yep. So you, some methods work on people. And don't work on others. So trying to that's been a big thing for me is trying to wrap my head around the different characters that you got in the business and what makes them tick. Yeah. And it's the thing that I do review quite a lot late at night.
Some people you use banter, and if they've done something outta along, you jack up the banter and let 'em know. But hang on, you've stepped outta line, but. Then there's the other people. You try that, you try the other method, you try this, you try yelling and screaming and it's I dunno how to really explain it.
But, that's that's a big thing. Yeah. Trying to understand people's personalities. Yeah. What makes 'em tick. Yeah.
Five years time, what would you like a CYM to look like?
I actually dunno. Because the business has just taken so many different. Spinoffs and like it's all headed in the direction that I wanted it to.
But there's just so many different facets and different bits and pieces. Like I, I never even considered a career pathway. When I first started the business, it was all about the, plan and preventative maintenance systems. And then as the business grows, you realize, hang on, staff retention's an issue.
And then you start thinking about career pathways and then that runs into other issues and then you come back to software and the way my brain works is, but in five years time, I'd like to have a scaled up version of what we got now but much more streamlined. That's, yep.
I think the service that we offer is probably pretty good. Like obviously every business can. Fine tuned, but what we do now in a scaled up version would be unreal. To get like-minded individuals together and achieve an outcome. That to me, is probably where I wanna see the business go.
Okay. Jesse, if you had a new starter starting today and they were listening to this podcast what would you say to them?
I would show them what they could do. What they, if they had the passion and the drive where they could be. So day one, I would map out a rough career pathway and what I'd expect from them.
Yep. And then the rest is up to them.
So if the A CYM were a song, what song would it be and why?
Titanic.
Titanic. You can't call a yacht management coffee.
Titanic sinking ship.
Even on a prayer. I dunno. Yeah, there's plenty that come to mind. Probably not for. Not a podcast.
Yeah. It sounds like you've got a few classics there. Yeah. No, we'll leave it with there, depending on the day. Hey, that's a wrap on today's episode of Kan Talk Kulture. A huge thank you to Jesse Tree.
For coming in today and sharing the story behind Aus Coast Yacht Management and the incredible work that he and his team do every day. Until next time, I'm Kylie Anne Neal and thanks for listening to the Kan Talk Kulture podcast. Thanks for joining me on Kan Talk Kulture. I'm Kylie Anne Neal. I hope today's episode gave you a clear review into the values driving your workplace.
All sparked new ideas about building a remarkable company Kulture. If you're a founder or CEO interested in sharing your Kulture story, or if you are looking to build a safer, stronger, and more trusted workplace, let's connect. Visit Kan Kulture.com. That's K-A-N-K-U-L-T-U-R e.com. To learn more, please hit that subscribe button to hear up more real conversations with founders and CEOs and hands-on episodes full of people.
First Kulture advice. I look forward to connecting with you on our next episode.