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Welcome to Humans of Agriculture. This podcast series is dedicated to discovering more about our food system, from the people involved in it.
Along the journey we'll be meeting people from all walks of life from Australia and from afar. Join us as we find out how our communities and our culture shape what we eat, and ultimately who we are.
​More people, More often, Identifying with Agriculture
Oli Le Lievre 0:01
Good, I don't even know where to start this episode, I had the chance to head up to Townsville and see the team at DRT ag tech and sit down with Mark pet for this one. And one besides Mark being one of the fittest. 50 something year old in taking me on a seven kilometre run around Townsville, this julong boy can not handle humanity very well. That's the first thing I learned. I think the big thing that kind of came through for me, I've probably reflected on and I've shared with a few other people is how Mark talks about the importance of purpose within his business, but also the importance of profit being a very close second. And I think it's something that we don't really talk about a lot in business and what we do, but ultimately, if we want to be able to do good today, tomorrow, next week, next year and into the future, we've got to make sure that we're in a position where we can kind of keep showing up as well. So marks a fascinating day, he talks about how in his 30s, he was working as a pilot up in northern Australia, and he decided that he'd take his career and life in a different direction. He talks about the importance of family. And today, I guess, taking on big challenges and thinking differently, whether it was crowdfunding and handing over equity to employees and other people to help propel their business forward. He really thinks about doing business in a different way, ultimately trying to do better for himself and in the environment of and now with what they're doing in and around the methane reduction space. It will be fascinating and interesting. So if you want to find out more, and you want me to stop talking, let's jump into this episode. And squizzy Shoutouts. This episode, we're sitting down with Mark Pitt. And, Mark you put me through the wringer a little bit this morning. You actually made me run we were channelling and Cameron Haynes, and I'll sing about it this morning. Like what we did, we did a run a swim with jellyfish, and then avoid a crocodile. So that's three they're slightly different when you're in North Queensland is Mike, welcome to the humans of agriculture podcast.
Speaker 1 1:55
Thank you, Ollie. I've heard a lot about you. And I appreciate you coming all the way up to Townsville here to hear the DRT story. And it's been a couple of days. It's been great,
Oli Le Lievre 2:03
man, it's been fantastic. I really enjoyed meeting your time yesterday, I'm looking forward to spending a bit more time with them as well. But I think I'm interested. You're a fascinating fellow. I think as I was reading your bio and your profile online, you talk about the importance of purpose, but also the importance of profit. And I think when it comes to business, lots of people can kind of shy away from that. I think purpose obviously is what aligns and draws people and builds unity and vision for profits pretty important in business. So I'm keen to flesh that out with ya know,
Speaker 1 2:30
I've got some strong views on it. But I guess just
Oli Le Lievre 2:34
starting off, like, tell me a little bit about where you grew up. What have been the early influences in your life that have have sent you down this pathway of starting your own company, especially kind of in agriculture.
Speaker 1 2:46
So I grew up in sort of central western Queensland, my dad manage sheep and cattle stations. Pretty typical sort of, you know, station managers son went a little country school, we moved around a bit his dad manage different places, went to boarding school in Toowoomba. Now went to get an egg for a year, you were wanted to do something in agriculture, I think because my father had been in agriculture. So you know, that was that was a strong thing that I wanted to do. But I went to get an ag thinking that I would take a career and earn a sort of sidestepped into my career in aviation. And after I did one year at Gatton, and like most young guys, I was just had enough for school and units. I deferred for a year and went to the territory ringing in 1986 on Delamere station. And that was a pretty defining part of my life because that's where I was exposed to see helicopters air and mastering. I'd always had a passion for aviation as a kid, you know, from a little two year old, three year old standing at a fence, watching planes takeoff, it was something I always wanted to do. I never thought I'd be able to become a pilot. But at Delmia when I was there in the camp, I can still remember it, you know, that was back in the days there was no social media in the camps, then, you know, we wouldn't go to town for three months, all indigenous Stockman there. So there was only two non Indigenous people myself and the head, Stockman camped out all the time and I can remember sitting on a ridge, we were yarding up a mob of cattle then that pet Stockman was telling me we're watching the chopper, put cattle in the ad an old bell 47 is in Mark, you know, those helicopter pilots make 500 bucks a week. And I thought Holy geez, 500 bucks a week, I'm on 120 bucks a week, I'm gonna become a helicopter pilot. So that's sort of how it started in my career into aviation. And then here a lot of other businesses, but I've always been motivated. Yeah, I suppose to sort of challenge myself and do something that I felt was really hard to do. And it's taken me a while man, I'm 57 years old this year. And I say to my team, you know, my eyesight is failing every day. But I think my vision is getting stronger. And that didn't happen overnight. So they were very big, big influences my aviation career early on to where we are here
Oli Le Lievre 4:53
you are 57 I think we can touch about that you don't run like you're 57 year old American towards the end of that six and a VT K is also that I'm probably thinking God, hopefully he doesn't just keep turning left and taking us further away from where we're gonna end up.
Unknown Speaker 5:06
I've done a lot of it. So thanks, I appreciate that.
Oli Le Lievre 5:10
You say you thought you'd never be or could be a pilot. Look why? Because
Speaker 1 5:14
it's really expensive, you know, back then there was no tertiary assistance, like there is now you can get hex now to become a pilot. You know, I think when I did my chopper licence, it was $30,000. And, you know, I was only making about six grand a year. So it was a bit it was a big financial commitment. And I think I think when I put together the, the money to get my licence, because my mum and dad didn't have the ability to support me or help me with that. Initially, I thought that was a barrier. But I just realised that I was 19 at the time that if you want something, you got to rock up, you know, you got to get to the line, you got to try to work out how you're going to do it. And even just to put together 30 grand, you know, that took some hustling. I had multiple credit cards I sold on my horses, I was breaking in horses, I got rid of them, sold my saddle, Salma Holden, you sold everything and finally was able to put together the money to get my Chapa licence and go forward. And and that set the scene. I think in life for me that, you know, there's always a way to get if you're really passionate about something. There's always a way to get there.
Oli Le Lievre 6:19
Was it everything that you hoped and dreamed of? Like you'd obviously sacrificed a lot you toiled a heck of a lot to kind of get that chopper licence? Was it what you're expecting, when you stepped into the chopper, I was
Speaker 1 6:29
the luckiest guy and I loved it. Like it was a really, it was a defining part of my life being helicopter pilot. I love flying. You know, I love the bush. I love the freedom. It was like being being a mastering pilot back in the 80s in the 90s, especially in the 80s. You know, you're like an astronaut there wasn't like there's a helicopter Portlander on every rock now on the north, as I say but back then there wasn't many. So it was special. But the isolation the time by myself, the time to visualise what I wanted to do with my life, the people I met, people asked me now, you know, I did nearly 18,000 hours and mustering. When people say to me, do I miss helicopter money, I actually don't miss banging cows in the yard. Day in day out 13 hours a day away from home six weeks at a time captain was swag. I actually miss the things that I never took for granted when I was flying like flying in the swag at night looking at the stars, you know, I missed that flying the helicopter back home after mastering along the coast in Cape York and the sun going down and seeing dunes in the water. And like all of those at the time were fluffy things that retrospectively that's what I miss on it. But di t has been great because it's really connected me back to where I think my roots were in the beginning. And, and I know that industry really well, because of my career is in trouble. Paul, why'd you move on? From helicopters? Yeah. All right, a good business. You know, I was doing contract mastering with a mate. And I was doing a few other things labour, recruiting. And I've always been really entrepreneurial, you know, and I, I don't like saying the word. I think I've always been really creative and forming a business from nothing, and building teams, and even branding and marketing. Like I really, I really liked that. And I've always liked it. When I got to about 35. I'm a bit older. And at the time, I wouldn't tell many people this sim or wife knows, but I just didn't feel like I was really what I was made out to do. I didn't feel like I was being useful. I didn't feel like there was a real purpose. I just felt that there was something else I could do with my life. And I didn't know at the time. So I sort of sold up and sold this and got out of it. And he had moved into other things. And then there was a bit of a segue into do it and how it came about in ag tech. But it was yeah, it's taken me a while to find where I meant to be, you know,
Oli Le Lievre 8:42
what's it like at 35? I guess everything you knew up to that point, thought you wanted to do come to that realisation that maybe we were at that point in time wasn't probably where you're destined to be. And I think that we'll probably talk about, I guess the the size of the universe, which I think is actually really cool. hated that. But at 35 A wife did you have have kids
Speaker 1 9:03
have any kids in? But yeah, I'd sort of it was probably my identity giving up my identity. I you know, I had a good business. I knew everyone it was sort of who I was, but I was reinventing my identity. I was actually excited about it, Ollie. Yeah, but I didn't know what what was in front of me. You know, I would at 35 I never thought that I'd be leading an ag tech business and, you know, public company and doing all this stuff and climate change. I never thought that that in my wildest dreams. However, I sort of knew that I was going to do something I was I but I had to find it took me a while to find it. And that was a journey in itself to come across acting. And
Oli Le Lievre 9:39
so like we've got lots of young people and and probably like mid career professionals that listen to the podcast and things like that. And this question that people get asked him, What's your three year goal? What's your five year goal? How important was it like did you have career plans and things and how I guess granular were you with that? Probably
Speaker 1 9:57
obsessively like I was I can still remember, I wrote a list of all these things I wanted to do my life went to the US with my wife, she was my girlfriend then. And I can remember reading, or listening to Anthony Robbins books and reading all this stuff on self help, and how important was actually writing down things I wanted to achieve in my life. So I still have a list of all these things I want to do with the box, and I tick them off, and I've ticked a lot off, and there's still a few more to go. And I still have them in a special place, and I look at them. So I think it's really important goals are really important for humans to feel like we're living a useful life. I'm a bit older now. So I think a lot more about, you know, where I've come from, and why I've behaved in certain ways, good and bad. And it's all that fabric of life mate. But it's really important that we have goals, you know, it helps us get out of bed in the morning. But the problem is not enough. People have goals that are really important to them, we do things that we think society expects us to do. Agriculture is a prime example. We were talking about it, you know, probably the succession you see of young people on the land who love agriculture, but then, at the same time, their passion might have been somewhere else, but they were expected to stay. And then we have people who are really passionate about agriculture, but they can't get into it for finance, and they end up doing something else was what they never really wanted to do. Let's
Oli Le Lievre 11:19
talk about that evolution. 35 you walk by? What did you and Fiona, you left the Northern Territory in Queensland, where you were calling home at the time? Yeah, we
Speaker 1 11:28
were living in Karumba. Yep. In the Gulf out of mustard business there. So I started to look at other things to do. I worked with a group build a feedlot in North Queensland. And, you know, that was pretty entrepreneurial. I had a few shares in that. And I learned a few lessons about business and corporates and got pushed out of it. And that was a big learning curve, I think got into some property development before the GFC. So I was looking around, I read about these people making all this money building apartments in Cannes, and looked into it and thought I should that doesn't seem very hard. So I had a crack at that. And before the GFC, I made a lot of money. You know, again, the universe has a funny way of humbling us. And I got humbled. I thought I was the smartest man in the room. And I got smashed before the GFC lost everything. And I was in Indonesia at the time doing some flying some contract flying or went over there for 18 months. And I got a phone call from a good friend of mine, Dean and Colin McKenna down in audible. And Colin rang up and said, Look, I want to buy jet, you know, would you help us sort of do the acquisition and find it. And he said to me, if you want to fly it, you can fly it. And I was thinking myself, you know, I could do that. So I actually did I quit my job in Indonesia, and I needed a job. So I went to the US board, Colin and Dean their jet and demo licence and flew at home back to Australia. And that started my corporate career that I've been doing for last 15 years flying them. But that was a big time I went and work for Colin for four years and waterval. So Fiona and I moved down there might always been a North Queensland or Northern Australian guy. And that was a real change moving to Victoria for years, but I had to because I needed a job, Mike, you know, I needed a job to feed my family. And that was when I look and I had a tick on the box that I wanted to do an MBA. So I thought about well this is a good time to see if I could do that. So I got in contact with a uni in Melbourne at Deakin. And because I didn't have a degree from that college on a diploma, I couldn't get straight into an MBA programme. So I had to do a certificate first I did the certificate first. And then they invited me into the master's programme. So I did my MBA down there. And it was during that time I came across the word academic. I majored in finance and corporations law. And it was actually doing a financial module on valuing Facebook, it was just before Facebook IPO. And I was fascinated with the way they'd raise capital and venture capitalists and this do this and tech business and, and I was just researching and I saw I came across his word ag tech. That was it made it. I don't want to make it sound too fluffy, but it lit a fire inside of me. And it was like, Hey, I'm going to build a tech business in the bush. That's what I was meant to do. So that was in 2009 and here we are now in 2024.
Oli Le Lievre 14:06
So 2009 And I guess the other question I've got Fiona, you've mentioned her a few times what role did mentors and other people have like you mentioned Tony Robbins so the self help and and that sort of things lots of time kind of by yourself flying and whatnot thinking who was also on the outside to feed a chapter
Speaker 1 14:23
Do you know i There were people who I respected in the beef industry people that you know what listen to. I wish I'd tried a bit harder to get a mentor. I think that's really important when young, because I think I could have accelerated some of the things I wanted to do if I'd had that. But it took me a while my wife has been a tremendous support fan has been a tremendous support. She's allowed me to be creative and take risks and you know, go down these rabbit holes and explore these things. And she stood beside me when I failed and you know, Fiona and I know what it's like to do really, really hard and I wear that a bit. It's a bit of a badge of honour. I'm in bed Are some of it. But I think it has definitely defined and and has made my life much more exciting and valuable because of fire. So
Oli Le Lievre 15:09
2009 you completed your MBA, you've come across this thing ag tech? Did you have an idea? Was there something that you saw as an opportunity that you could have you mark on? Yeah,
Speaker 1 15:18
so uh, yeah, I did. Early on, I noticed a couple of things about the cycle with ag Tech, I probably the best way to describe it is I saw early on that tech was disrupting every other industry, but it hadn't really disrupted agriculture. However, if you look at what all that previous tech disruption was around social media, and smartphones, and really all it gave us was humanity, entertainment and convenience. But I could see that, hey, you know, this ag tech could be really big industry, because it's so important. Food security and sustainability in agriculture would even early on around, you know, the climate debate, he could see that, you know, there was things in nature and farming. So that was exciting. So I knew that there would be a big opportunity, because I knew extensive ag really well, I wanted to start something that we could solve a problem straight away for farmers because I think we get off track in ag tech a little bit we create these novel things that the markets great tech, but the markets not ready for it got to be really customer centric. And in extensive agricultural, second biggest cost we have is supplementation. And we're putting like blocks and relics on the bag on the ground. You know, like 10,000 years ago, Caveman was putting stuff on the ground to attract animals. And here we are, or the leading producers were still doing it. So we decided that we would explore water supplementing, but my father had had a little bit of legacy. And then he'd had a little supplement business. And he had actually sold doses he and his brother, his brother was probably the more the the entrepreneurial that the scientists that invented the first water medicated to put urea in the water. So I used a bit of that legacy and planning and yeah, that was at the back of what we started, do it off.
Oli Le Lievre 17:00
Was it something that you'd been exposed to three year old man? Or was it kind of Yeah, so you knew how things kind of work. But you
Speaker 1 17:07
all have problems, because he had a lot of problems to get through, there was a lot of innovation that hadn't been solved from, from tech innovation, to chemistry, innovation. So there were a lot of things that had to be solved, make water supplementing, or that production scalable. But we didn't identify that there was money to be made there. And like what you're saying the beginning, like we could do something. And do it is sort of expanded to be even more purposeful in my mind since then. But at the time, we knew that we could get revenue and profit from it, we had to just work it out. And we could build a business around it, which we've been very lucky with. So
Oli Le Lievre 17:43
if I'd seen and bumped into you back in those early days, what was the vision? And what did the business kind of look like and who was around you
Speaker 1 17:51
in DRT? The very early days, yeah, first first employee went on in 2017, you will have seen a lot of chaos solid. You know, we had to raise money, we didn't know whether we had product fit. We didn't know how to like just building the tech was so hard. I don't have a tech background. We've just had so many people had to help us with that. And it took a while to build a tech team to be able to build all that. So there are a lot of difficult, difficult times, tech not working, having to raise capital all the time to stay alive. But I think you would have definitely seen that we wanted to build something there that there was an opportunity. And it's evolving everyday do it. And you know, we can talk about climate, the stuff we're doing in climate. Now. I think that AG tech and climate tech are going to be huge businesses in agriculture and society in the next 50 years. Huge businesses.
Oli Le Lievre 18:40
So I just want to jump back. There's a bit of time between 2009 When the idea kind of started and bringing on that first employee in that period as well. You became a dad. I
Speaker 1 18:48
did. Yeah. I became a dad in 2005. Okay, there's in five. So I had one tall Michi Yeah, he'd come along in her life, then
Oli Le Lievre 18:58
how did being a dad I guess either add to what the superpowers within it. But also what my guess did it complicate as well as you're starting an early stage business will definitely
Speaker 1 19:07
adds to the risk profile. Yeah. Because you know, you've got this other responsibility. I think the thing I've learned the most about being a dad, you know, starting a business like this is the importance of compartmentalising work from family. You know, when I was younger, when I had businesses, I was a bit off my head and I bring a lot of that bad energy home that work energy. But I worked really hard that when I come home with a family, I clock off and you know, it's all about them. Yeah, it's an added responsibility. Man, I talk to guys and ladies who want to start their own businesses with kids and they're hesitant to do it, you know, because of the risk. But I always think that you got to think about your own life a bit. I'm not saying you got to be selfish, but you do have to think about you've got to your family's got to be first but your own health has got to be important to you don't want to be a cranky old grandfather, who never achieved your goals because you kids you got to find that balance. So I've always tried to have that balance because I knew it was important to be on become.
Oli Le Lievre 20:04
You mentioned that you had started flying. So you actually had, I guess, a supplementary business within the aviation space that business is still running today. Yeah.
Speaker 1 20:11
So when I left warble, and I left column, I came back to Toowoomba because the kids were getting ready to go to school, my parents had retired, so I wanted to come back and be close to them, to care for them. So we settled in Toowoomba, where I went to boarding school. But I had to turn a buck then, and I just fell into corporate aviation. So I set up a business, flying and managing corporate jets, and quite a few, mainly in meat in the meat industry. So quite a few of the meat companies in this country, you know, we've set up their corporate divisions or flying their planes. And that's a great little business that gave me an income, I started doing a bit more property developing, then we had some good times and some bad time in that. And I just waited until the it got to a stage where I just felt I need to give it all of my focus. So yeah, the aviation business still ticks along. And I love that. It's a big part of my life. But my focus is now building DRT. So that
Oli Le Lievre 21:03
I guess inflection point where it went, Okay, we're all in we're rolling the dice and backing myself. And we're building a team, for people who haven't come across DRT AgTech. Before. Firstly, let's talk about the note, do it does it stand for something?
Speaker 1 21:16
Well, we started it was direct injection technology we started off with everyone used to call it do it to them, we just couldn't do it, then everyone would say well what to do it, then we'd have to do the story. Well, it's an ag tech business. So in fact, one of our our people lead le CI, so why don't we just put AgTech on the other end? So that's what we've done. Simple as that. It's as simple as that. Yeah, I wish there was some other funky reason to it. But that's how it can be. And
Oli Le Lievre 21:42
so can you explain to our listeners, I was fortunate to kind of see it yesterday, how it works, can you explain to them how it actually works, and maybe one of the benefits.
Speaker 1 21:50
So what we've tried to do is so we basically build hardware that measures water flow, we put a water metre in the waterline where the water goes through the livestock. And off the back of that water flow, we can sort of programme a controller with some software to make some decisions around okay, that much water, there's this many cattle, and then we inject into the water, a certain amount of supplement. And within that liquid supplement is urea and phosphorus and ammonium sulphate and a whole range of other soluble additives that provide them with all the production they need in lieu of doing lick blocks, and rollick. And then what we do is we hook those doses up to telemetry, so and then we display all that on a dashboard where we can remotely control the doses from anywhere in the world. And we pull data out so we can see in real time how much crude protein a group of cattle are getting and how much phosphorus and then off the back of all that because we can make we can measure now we can start to manage production so our customers can increase or decrease dose rates. And it was off the back of that, that platform that we built, that we fell into the climate opportunity around reducing methane. And we've got a big focus at the moment or building out that across the platform now. So we we make all the animal health products, I say to people, we're a bit like the coke vending machine, and we make the coke machines, we put the Coca Cola in there, the customers just pay for the coke. So 90% of our revenue do it comes from our revenue, our enterprise business where we own all the technology, we own all the assets on farm, we do all the work, we fill all the tanks up, we collect all the samples, we measure everything, we give all the dashboards free of charge, and then our customers only have to pay a price per litre. That's where 90% of our revenue comes from. And we went that way, because we had to solve another problem in in Tech because farmers don't really want to own tech in the middle of nowhere. Because, you know, they want to know that there's someone to give them customer service and gonna rock up and and that was a big thing that when we created our enterprise business, we really started to scale then because we're solving a labour problem for them and we're backing the tech, why would
Oli Le Lievre 24:03
a farmer use it as in what are the options and what's the value and the benefit to them in using it? Well, I
Speaker 1 24:08
set up putting out link blocks everywhere over a million acres, huge job, but there's not the wastage you know, we can be cheaper, but we can actually they've got an opportunity to manage production, you know, they can change from urea or more phosphorus base, they can measure the performance. If they want to our enterprise customers, we do all the work they don't have to worry about putting out link blocks, they can focus on other things they're doing with their herd management or their capex projects they might be running and we look after all the all the labour force
Oli Le Lievre 24:36
and so I think I know even in my line of work that Australia is a big place for you guys you're choosing the server or started off really in Northern Australia servicing them. One you can probably getting more remote and also to getting people in there so like had the business grow was you in the early days literally running around with a couple
Speaker 1 24:56
of other guys actually going up to the territory putting one day Oh serine, then two, then five, and then putting on a couple of staff and then finding another customer. But we work really hard to find what what I call influences in areas, you know, we knew, because I had all these years of experience, I knew that the way to sell a product or an opportunity or an offering was you really need to get, you need to find influencers, you know, people need to talk about it, he could do all the advertising the paper you want to. So we picked, we picked innovative graziers that were happy to give us a go. And then other farmers would look over the fence and say, Oh, this person's doing it must be good. And then they'd be a conversation, then we'd have a chat to someone else. And we've just built it out like that. So
Oli Le Lievre 25:39
I'd love for you to tell me on the business front how you've gone in your changing role, obviously, from being so hands on literally screwdriver in hand, putting those things in, but also being able to see what was possible staying across what was happening. As you mentioned, you guys have now gone down the climate pathway as well. So not only is it on the production side where you guys can add trace elements to support livestock production. There's things reducing methane, how have you stayed across all of that,
Speaker 1 26:06
like I'm still a really hands on sort of leader, I think it's important. I tried to spend most of my time in two places, one with my team or two with my customers. And because you can remotely remotely I can. I can stay on top of strategy. But I think I can just stay all over it because I'm so I love it so much Ali in a minute. I'm passionate about it. It's it's like a get out of bed. And I think of new ideas. I we could do this and it's fun, and it makes me feel alive. And I love going to work and but I'm really lucky. I'm really lucky. I think that's helped me because I'm so invested in what we're doing. I think it's really important what we're doing for our farmers, I really want to try to do something to help our industry. You know, I'm concerned where agriculture is going on really concerned about where the positioning of livestock in the world, you know, the narrative around there bad. I've always been a great believer that ruminant animals will unlock potential. We've never realised to be more better custodians of our planet and produce more sustainable red meat, and all that. And I just wanted to be part of it. So jumping out of bed every day trying to solve methane and build all this for some reason I can just start over. So
Oli Le Lievre 27:12
I want to ask you on that, because I'd say and why I'm picking your brain on this is I feel like I'm quite similar to you in lots of ways. How do you go matching your energy and your enthusiasm and the ideas to then also maybe what the team can keep up with an keeping them I guess, where their time and energy is needed, which is in the here? And now?
Speaker 1 27:29
That's a real good question. It's a good question. Because I think if you're so driven, you've got to be careful that you don't become so crazy that people don't want to be around. So I'm mindful of that, you know, I pick my time. But I try to set the pace. I try to inspire the team to you know, have a crack at stuff themselves. You can't do it all yourself, I definitely realise that you know, but I think part of being a really good founder of any business starting from nothing is being really good with people you know about building teams. And I wish I could say that there were all these traits in people to be great team members that you learn at university, I think there are fundamental lessons to learn about people. But as you get older, I become more attune to people, I try to spend time to feel what their energy is like and where they can what's their motivation? Would they be a good fit? Yeah, and set the pace like that and set the gold and, you know, the enthusiasm, people need to see the leader enthusiastic about life. And that is important. And they will follow you. When hasn't it served you probably when we've when it's been really hard financially, you know, because it's not for everyone working in these sort of businesses. It probably hasn't served me. When in the early days, when you're talking to big corporates, people who run big corporates, to run these sort of businesses, you are an outliner. So you are on the edge and identified that early on. So making sure that you're not too you know, when you're trying to get new customers, you just got to not be too crazy on your thinking or think too fast. Yeah, that's been something I've had to work on really hard.
Oli Le Lievre 29:02
And what about on the people from what's probably is a is a revelation or a moment or something that you really recall. Maybe even if it was a time where you felt like, wow, I've I've really grown into this and matured in terms of my role as as a manager.
Speaker 1 29:17
I can tell when that was Ollie was when we did a couple of crit we've done three crowd funds and do it that I've been a bit emotional thing about this was when I could see my staff on the on the platform, investing their money, so they were working for us. And at the same time, they were investing back in the business buying shares and I sort of really felt that we've got something here, you know, we're doing really good. It's there was great. What's
Oli Le Lievre 29:39
it like to have that vote of confidence? Like you'd come up with this vision, you're so passionate and driven about it, to have people put their hand in their pocket for you?
Speaker 1 29:49
It's very humbling. It's a huge responsibility. You know, I don't take it lightly. But it was probably what I realised crowdfunding was really good for us. You know, crowdfunding got a bad rap. I'm on the greatest supporter of crowdfunding. And I like I just think it's the most fantastic way for young people to raise capital to fulfil their vision and their dream. But when you see people investing in your business, because they're investing in you, or they're investing in people, people buy people, people don't buy spreadsheets or PowerPoints, you know, people will look at businesses or leaders, and say, that aligns with my own thoughts, or my own feelings. And I want to be part of that not just financially, but I want to be part of change. Crowdfunding was a defining moment for me and do it to see all these mums and dads and young kids putting 250 bucks in and 500 bucks and 1000 bucks, you know, we haven't been funded by the big VC, nothing. Everything that do it has done has been the complete opposite to why the story books should go with venture capitalists everything we've gone down a completely different road for gave
Oli Le Lievre 30:53
you the confidence to do that, like one, it's an idea to be able to do it. But then to actually go, you know, stuff it, let's go and increase the number of shareholders, let's see what we can do with the everyday person. Well,
Speaker 1 31:03
we needed to raise capital, you know, Elon, remember the day, I remember reading in the in the financial review about how ASIC was changing the crowdfunding and allowing crowdfunding, I'd sort of heard about it, it was, you know, traditionally, crowdfunding was where it was, like a GoFundMe page, you know, you had some disease, and you need to raise money. And so it had a bad rap to start with. But when I'd heard about these platforms, you know, I could see, hey, this is a way to raise capital. And this is a way that everyday people would potentially buy into what our vision was for the business, we just had to articulate it correctly. I just felt that we had to do it, you know, we had to raise money, otherwise, it was gonna stop the business was gonna. Yeah. And
Oli Le Lievre 31:45
was it as simple as that, like, in the sense of, I guess, you going? Well, we can either trickle along, or we can get this injection of money. And we can kind of move forward, like, how did it complicate things? Oh, well,
Speaker 1 31:57
it did. You know, of course, it was a lot more governance, all of a sudden, you know, you don't have to be a public company to raise money now and crowdfunding, but when we did our first crowd fund, part of the regulations, he had to be a public company. So we had to incorporate a public company. Once you start a public company, you got to get audited every year, there's a whole level of governance that we'd never done. So we had to learn all that. And but it wasn't that hard, really mine, it was, it was it was, you know, just process. I think the hardest thing was was making sure we identified early on. And this is why I'm such a big believer in storytelling, you know, great businesses always have a great backstory. And that's what forms those businesses when they become big, mature businesses. So it's important for a founder to embrace your story. Everyone's got a different story. So we really embraced our story. We spent money on a video, you know, we use that for promotion to bind our business. We travelled around the country, trying to let people really understand what we're doing. We went up to the territory and did filming. And we went here and you know, all over the John, we did it. And it was a great video, you know, we've done a better since then. But that's what got us go. All
Oli Le Lievre 33:00
go and watch this video. Because we're chatting about it over dinner last night, there wouldn't be too many, I'll say founders of public or founders, but also managing director CEOs of publicly listed companies that will jump in a helicopter and do their own their own droppings and whatnot.
Speaker 1 33:16
But we've done everything and do it to survive. Yeah, like, it's, it's been a lot of crazy stuff we've had to do. But it's allowed us to survive. It's allowed us to keep going until we could build our revenues. And we could get profitable to where we are now. So you know, when we start raising money now in the business, it's more about strategic raising for new initiatives. Back in the early days, it was survival. Yeah, we had to get money to put someone on to try to build out the business. Yeah.
Oli Le Lievre 33:42
At what stage? Did it change going? Was there a day that you can recall where it went from? We're literally getting by trying to survive to keep supporting people's livelihoods to going, okay, maybe we've got over that hump,
Speaker 1 33:54
are probably there. 12 months ago, we've got a new chairman. He won't mind me saying his name, Andrew McPherson. He's a good mate of mine. You know, he came from a CEO of the second biggest meat company in Australia. He believed in what we're doing. He led around, he invested his own money in the business with a with quite a few other corporate professional people. That was a defining time because all of a sudden, I felt like we finally had people investing in the business that were at the pinnacle of agriculture. That took a walk. But that was a defining moment, because we really, in my mind, became a real business then, you know, we had a real board and some of our members were there nimble. We've got a great board, very professional, professional people. So you go from a scruffy startup with all this chaos and all this to starting to really mature. So it's an exciting time for us right now.
Oli Le Lievre 34:46
A real business. Now, tell me a bit about your staff. Because I think that's also a bit of a, I'll say a lesson on journey in itself, I think, yeah. You literally had had these highly skilled people who were in different areas, driving Ubers doing tasks. was weren't anywhere near their, their skill set or what they're actually capable of. How did you come across that? And what made you I guess the right person at the right fit for work out 11 or 12 different nationalities
Speaker 1 35:12
made it, there's a few things that I've done, do it, the thing I'm most proud of is our team, you know, our multiculturalism, our diversity, like it really is. It's, it's a great, it's great to be able to leave such a diverse team. But that happened because we needed staff. Initially, we needed tech staff, we couldn't get tech staff. We had one Jack who just happened to be in Townsville, you know, he was really our start with our tech Jack sort of led our tech team, or he's an Ozzy, but he was raised on a dairy farm in New Zealand. But that was the beginning. But when we started to need to put staff in the business, we couldn't get staff, we couldn't get him to come to Townsville. And we had a lot of immigrants applying for jobs. And so we started putting a few on and you know, I learned how to how to manage that. And then how to grow that. So of the just under 50 people that work in the business 30 of them would be immigrants. And we would have never built the business out without the multiculturalism and what we're doing. So that's a big part of the business. So, so many young people that have come here have got masters in IT and engineering and finance, and they've moved from other countries to become Australian citizens and to contribute to our economy and all of those things. And they've come along and they've helped us on where we're going. So the multiculturalism and then, you know, I know we spoke about last night another another part that really changed was when we had to get staff in, in the north to work in our in our delivery drivers. And we just, you know, we were employing locals from from the north, it was challenging, getting the right sort of people. And I remember that day, when I had a moment I was at the dalens tomogram a rugby match into them. It's a big 40 match. And I was there walking around seeing all these old mates of mine from school. And, you know, they were telling me these stories, how they'd sold the family farm and they'd moved to Toowoomba and you know, their wife was working in a medical centre. And they put the kids through school and they wanted to do this and wanted to do that. But what they really wanted to do was get out back out in the bush. And it was just like a light bomb. I said, Geez, like water resource. Here's a heap of guys that we could employ tomorrow. So we advertised on social media for five shows. And that's a big part of our workforce now is middle aged X farmers who we fly in and out of the north, they do two weeks on two weeks off, that was a big turning point to in solving our labour problem in in remote areas.
Oli Le Lievre 37:31
I feel like you could have a huge influx of people that would be like, it sounds like a great kind of holiday, but also an outlet where they can kind of get out and if like Could someone come and do it literally for kind of six months. 12 months fly in fly?
Speaker 1 37:42
I got a fella has been with us a couple of years now. Yeah, yeah. So I sort of wonder sometimes whether I should become a firefighter, because that's great lives every two weeks. Is that what you're doing and going off on holidays? Are they going camping? Or they're going here? But yeah, we have a lot of people contact us. And I think it's an untapped resources to things. Labour is a big problem in the bushes, you know, Oli, but we need to think outside the box a bit, you know, we need to go down that road less travelled. And we need to really explore the opportunity for immigrants to come and work in our industry. We need to look at how we can get mature people back into our industry, the fly in fly out model, you know, people said is not going to work because I'll go work in a mine for twice the money. I never thought that they would, because what they were wanting was a regular wage to do something they were passionate about at a stage in their life where they weren't looking for money. And it's worked really well.
Oli Le Lievre 38:32
I think what we're talking about money, let's talk about like the lessons around the importance of profit in business, I think, totally get that you guys are purpose LED. And you've got that, that ability to bring people in on that. And I'd say you have a unique skill set in that how you can paint the vision, but also then bring people along that I think huge credit to you, and what's probably amazing, and I just love to understand more of his people talk about diversity and all the power but actually, I presume as a manager, where you're dealing with multiple people with multiple backgrounds, there's issues and family things that are happening back home, people might be physically present, but maybe not at all, like as a as a manager, how have you been able to, I guess, adapt? or what have you learned about actually managing a diverse team, really
Speaker 1 39:17
simple thing you got to care. You know, as a leader, you need to care for your staff. And you got to know that you've got their back, you know, I have a real open door policy with my staff. And I'm actually proud that, you know, they will come to me when they have some personal thing happening. Because I think you've got to be a leader where they feel comfortable, that you're there to watch over them and help them to navigate things. So that's the first thing you got to really, really care and you got to understand their cultures and embrace it. But most importantly, just being a leader that you care for him because people are looking for that in businesses, you know, not just the financial stuff. They're looking for a family, a community, that we're all aligned on this vision but at the same time we've each got each each other's back. And
Oli Le Lievre 40:01
then what about the learnings around profit? And actually being comfortable with saying, it's all? Luck? Yes, we we've proven we can raise money. But at the end of the day, we need to, as you said, I think you talk about profit being the oxygen,
Speaker 1 40:14
it's taken me a while to understand the importance of purpose in a business, you know. And again, I think that when you get older, you start to reflect on, you know, what is important. I think just shaped building businesses for money is not sustainable. You know, for me, there are people that do it. But that's not me. I think what's important is building businesses that are purposeful and useful, and can make a difference. You know, I actually get challenged in society, when I see the valuation of some of these gaming companies and online casinos, you know, these billionaires. And I think to myself, like, it's great, but it's just for convenience. If those people challenged that energy into building these purpose led businesses in climate or food, what we could actually achieve. So I think purpose is really important. You know, for me, as a leader, I want to do something, I want to have a legacy around the business, but you just profit is like this close second right behind, you got to make money, you've got to get a return for investors. Profit is the oxygen that allows us and gives us the right to be purposeful, basically,
Oli Le Lievre 41:17
I think it's such such an important part to talk about also, especially in tech businesses, but especially in agriculture, a lot of people are so tied up and passionate about what they do. I think the purpose side of things is fantastic. But if you actually want to be around next week, next year, you've got to be covering that margin.
Speaker 1 41:33
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a bit like, I think the agriculture has got such an opportunity to contribute more than just food in terms, especially around this whole climate debate and sustainability. So we're really positioning ourselves to be at the forefront, to help our customers to be able to capture these opportunities that are coming. I think you'll see in 50 years that they won't be Googles or Microsoft, the biggest businesses in the world, I think the biggest businesses in the world will be purpose led impact businesses that are making a difference to humanity on food and climate and space exploration and all of those things. And I hope I'm right, you know, we're putting our toe in the water with a new business that we have spoken to you about that where I do believe that society is ready to invest in those sort of businesses. But we've got to get them a return to. And
Oli Le Lievre 42:20
being an advocate, like on the forward facing, I think, like in one of the purpose or mission statements of what you guys do, it's about a thriving agriculture sector, but also a thriving planet Earth. And I think like, language is so important, but also at the same time, too. It's, it's really easy, I guess, conform to what society expect. But the things that you talk about importance of caring about Planet Earth and talking proactively around climate and the agriculture's role in being a solution towards it, it can be uncomfortable. Yeah,
Speaker 1 42:48
definitely, especially in definitely rural circles. My take on the climate debate is is it doesn't really matter whether you're a climate change believer or climate cycle, I've got my own personal views, which is probably doesn't really matter to anyone, but I've got my own personal views. I think looking after the planet is really important. I've never, ever had a debate from any farmer who doesn't believe in animal welfare, sustainability and be a custodian of the land and looking after nature. I don't think farmers will be realised that they're probably the greatest greenies in an animal liberation as an environmentalist that I've ever met. But I think it's somewhere in between. And it's more around sustainability, and sustainability for the environment, the atmosphere sustainability for our food systems, sustainability as humans, you know, our mental health and where we're all going and being happy. It's such a big debate. And it's such a big problem, why I believe that we'll see businesses pop up, that will solve these big problems that that we've got.
Oli Le Lievre 43:48
I think it's like the part for me with agriculture, like right now. And where I think the superpower is, for us as a sector is not the world's craving leadership, there's so much volatility in all these different areas. And so I will, one foundations of life is food, but then everything that kind of comes to that, as you've said, how we care for animals, so showing that care for other things, how we care for other people, how we're looking after the environment, and kind of acknowledging that evolutionary process has happened have, we did things in the past? Because that's how it was done. And we don't have to throw it out and kind of say, Oh, that was terrible. That was shit. Well, actually, we've done we're able to learn from that and go, Well, how do we keep moving forward?
Speaker 1 44:23
Yep, yep. Yeah, no, agriculture has got to be hard to play. You know, red meat is such an interesting debate in that around, you know, the fake meat to know, my views on 1000 2000 years. I think as we evolve as a species, we probably won't eat Sentinel beans. That's my view. But it's a long, long way away. And red meat will play a really important part in humanity, that you know, for cognitive growth for infants and all of these things. We need protein, but we've got to take hold as a sector. We've got to, we've got to take hold of the narrative. We need to get In agriculture, about telling the story that the masses want to hear, not at not the story, we think we want to tell about ourselves the story they want to hear, and the story that I think that people in metro areas are wanting to hear that farming is really important foods really important. Were great custodians of the land, we believe in animal rights. You know, the issue is, as a business, live export is a great example. We've just got completely pounded, because they've got momentum in this story that's taken place. And I know lots of live exporters in in those industries. And they're just such wonderful advocates for animal care and all of those things. And even what we're doing with live export, we're delivering protein to countries that need it, you know, they've got a right to develop those countries. And we've got an opportunity, and we seem to be being stopped by all this stuff. But we've got to have leadership, we need leaders, we need people who can market and tell the right story. Totally.
Oli Le Lievre 45:55
Let's quickly touch on what does the future look like for you guys? What's what's next? What is the road ahead look like?
Speaker 1 46:01
So we're really, of course, you know, we have a pretty to find strategy. And as you grow as a business, you know, you start to really focus on your strategy, what are we going to do? So we call our primary economic engine and deal to animal nutrition business. So putting your own fossils in the water, that's where we grow revenues where we can make profit. And we really work hard to defend and protect that, because that business gives us the right to invest in the next horizon of where we see opportunities. And the next horizon for us is moving into horticulture. So we've started a team, we build a sign to build a team in horticulture, we see opportunities to bring out those in technology and our software to that industry. It's very traditional still, and probably the most exciting opportunity for us is around building out a platform to reduce methane. We could see early on that solving the methane problem wasn't about the additives. All it was all the narrative. It was where all the money got. But that was not the problem to solve. When you look at look at the red meat industry in in Australia, 8% of cattle in feedlots and dairies, and they're not the biggest emitters, like they emit the biggest emitters are in our extensive pasture base. And we had to work out how we're going to deliver these additives at scale. So we're working really hard on now we have a product, we're putting in the water. Now, we've just about got a Carbon Project registered with Vera. So person can buy a dose and be part of a Carbon Project and create additional revenue. So for me is trying to unlock that revenue potential for our farmers. Because farming is difficult as we know. And I really want to try to develop these carbon opportunities where farmers don't get left behind as price takers yet again, in this cabin, but we can become price makers. So we're looking at ways on how we can sell farmers credits, to consumers, environmentally conscious people and try to get a better price for our farmers. So that's a really exciting project. So I think we'll move into the climate tech space, I would say, in the next five years more of our revenue will come from carbon than what it will from supplementation, but sort of the nexus between climate tech and ag tech. Like the future sounds pretty exciting. Yeah. Well, Mike, you got to do something between birth and death.
Oli Le Lievre 48:15
So what what's keeping you involved? Why are you still involved in why will you keep being involved in agriculture?
Speaker 1 48:21
I think it's cool. I love it. I love the people. I think it's important. I'm really passionate about, you know, seeing our industry thrive, especially the beef industry in the sheep industry. I hate seeing the Hard Knocks we get from, you know, minority groups. And I'd like to be able to, you know, prove some people wrong that all the things that we're hearing is incorrect, which I know they are, we'll all retire now. I won't know I don't want to retire. That's not it's not you know, having too much fun now, like, my wife keeps telling me that I'm over 50 now, so I'm entitled to get on over 50s home. Last. But no, I'll keep I'll keep running the business as long as the board and you know, the shareholders have supported me. And here's see where the journey takes me.
Oli Le Lievre 49:05
One thing we haven't touched on is like how, how have you learned to be able to look after yourself to continue to keep up the momentum to be able to think clearly and what what are the some of the things that you prioritise, week to week, day to day?
Speaker 1 49:19
Yeah. I know that you're passionate about mental health, you know, I've seen things online by that. And I'm happy to admit that, you know, I've had mental health issues I've where I've got really low and everything. But I started really exercising in my 40s You know, I've had some hard times financially you know, I've been down some really dark dark roads. But I came across running and you know, looking after myself health and exercising and the importance of sleep and you know, moderation on how many goals studies I have all those things and the importance of being able to turn my brain off so that I can be present with my family. But when I'm at work, turn it back on. So I'm present with the team here. That's been the way that I've and I'm a great believer that you know, all of the things to help us. I know that there are genetic things that we have problems with mental health. But exercise is so important, you know, self help around the right foods, going a bit easy on the grog and putting random boots on and going for a run through the bush and sitting in the sun in the morning and just getting away from your phone. All those things seem fluffy. But they're really they're all free. And they're very important. So I delivered July. Yeah,
Oli Le Lievre 50:34
no, I totally agree. So I think your career is fascinating where you started in central Queensland with your family on a station, you've gone worked up north, you've been helicopter pilot, you've worked in the south, you now. But I'll say it again, just because it kind of blows me away a bit. You're managing a business with 12 different nationalities and I guess, diverse cultures. If you were chatting to students today, you 10 students especially, like, what would you say to them about why they should consider a career in agriculture? And what are those possibilities for them in the sector?
Speaker 1 51:07
I think I tell it, that it's a really important job. You know, you can really contribute to something. It's fantastic be with nature, you know, it's the people are great. The opportunities, and the opportunities, I think, in agriculture are even more now than what they were 50 years ago. Yeah, there's a few things we've got to solve. I think we've we've got to have a debate at some stage around the capital allocation, we need to get more young, what I call zero starters into the bush, we need to find a way that that year 10 student that wants to has that vision to own their own farm, that we can get them into our own farm. We need those sorts of passionate people who are going to try to do innovative things. But I'd also say to those people that you know, getting out in the bush, the people and the things you'll see and all that is, it's fantastic.
Oli Le Lievre 51:58
Well, Mark, thank you so much for having me up here. And sitting down for telling your your story is fascinating. I'm excited to see what's ahead for you got so thank you.
Speaker 1 52:06
Thanks, Ollie. Yeah, so appreciate you coming up here. And everyone had di T's enjoyed having you up here and telling you about what we're doing. So keep up the good work, Mike, we think you're doing a great job. You're a great advocate for agriculture. And, you know, for what we're doing, so you don't have a wonderful job. Now, thank
Oli Le Lievre 52:21
you. And I think it's probably the exact same way that you feel about DRT the way I feel about it doesn't really feel like a job. It's a heck of a lot of fun and doing something important. So we're very lucky. Thank you. Well, that's it for another episode from us here at humans of agriculture. We hope you're enjoying these podcasts. And well if you're not, let us know hit us up at Hello at humans of agriculture.com. Get in touch with any guest recommendations topics, or things you'd like us to talk and get curious about. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. rate subscribe, review it, any feedback is absolutely awesome. And we really do welcome it. So look after yourselves. Stay safe, stay sane. See you next time.
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