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Transforming the Game with Kristina Katsanevas is the podcast for game-changers, risk-takers, and industry shakers. Don’t hate the player—hate the game? Not here. These leaders are rewriting the rules. From high-net-worth entrepreneurs, founders of Australia’s most iconic brands, and those disciplined enough to keep stacking those habits to success. We dive into the minds of pioneers innovating in media, business, fashion, sport and transformation.
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Kristina Katsanevas (00:00)
Welcome to the Founders 15 of Fame, the segment that is taking you behind the brand, behind the logo, and directly into the mind of the founders that are building your favorite companies. In an era where AI is leaving us questioning what is real and what is crafted, this is your chance to hear authentic stories straight from the source. No filters, no scripts.
just genuine conversations to show you who's really running the show. Quick favor, over 60 % of you that are regularly watching this podcast and enjoying it haven't yet subscribed. You know how this game works. If you could subscribe, like and follow on whatever your favorite platform is, I'd really appreciate it. Your support helps me more than you ever know. I'm able to get more interesting guests that are able to add more value and to help transform your life. So thank you so much for supporting and being part of the game.
On today's episode of Founders 15 of Fame, I'm here with Nicholas Hamilton. He's in industrial electrical engineering, but I'm going to let him explain exactly what he does. And welcome to Founders 15 minutes of fame, Nicholas Hamilton. Welcome, Nicko. G'day, how you going? For everyone out there listening today, name, age if you want, location, and what is the business that you are in? Okay, name, Nick Hamilton, age 43, business that I'm in. ⁓ So Hamilton.
I &E is a electrical contracting business. work pretty much exclusively for industrial clients specializing in hydrocarbon projects and engineering. sounds really, really smart. ⁓ So how long have you been in business? So we've had the business for about 10 years, very humble beginnings. Before this, I personally worked in the oil and gas space. So we took all that learning and sort of
pumped it into this business and kicked it off about a decade ago. What's your number one problem you're solving for people? Number one problem we solve is we make sort of complex simple. So in the oil and gas and mining space it's not just
installing a light bulb or running some power cables in. You've got a number of different acts and legislations that you need to be aware of. For most people that's a pretty daunting thing to have to figure out. But we know all those bits and pieces, the idiosyncrasies of the industry, and we can take all of our learnings and make a complex project pretty simple and deliver it.
without too many dramas. like that. He says makes the complex simple, like simple for him, I for the rest of us, not so much. What were the names of your companies again? So we've got Hamilton Instrument Ledger, which is the electrical contract of business.
And obviously we've got the other business, ProSimp, which is our industrial components business, which sort of sells instrumentation, power generation equipment, and industrial skids designs through that one as well. So you've started it from scratch. What do you reckon has been your biggest challenge as a founder? Biggest challenge as a founder is probably scaling. It takes, you know, there's the old saying in the industry, you know, it takes money to make money.
So when you're in this sort of space, the costs involved are magnified. It's not just buy a van, put a spark in it. It's the ongoing training and stuff. So for this industrial space, you're always reinvesting your capital back into the business and into people. So biggest challenge is always people.
Making sure you get the right people we always tell people that we need to send the sharpest knife in the block to site and you know If you're not sending the sharpest knife in the block, you're not working with this industry So yeah, that's pretty much it making sure you get the right people when you've got enough money to fund those people Do you hear that a lot from a lot of my founders that I talk with is that people is their biggest challenge usually? what's your sort of key in finding your a players? How do you attract? Being a good place to work ⁓
You know, sometimes it's not all about money, it's about opportunities, it's about variety of work, it's about keeping people sort of motivated, engaged. Sometimes you'd think that, ⁓ you don't want work these people too hard. Sometimes these people actually do want to work and they want to work hard. So, you know, making sure they're not sitting on their hands as well. So making sure they're engaged, they get opportunities for growth, they're paid well, ⁓ and you just look after them.
you know, if you look after your big player, they after you. Very, very true. And a very good key there is that it's not always about the money and not everyone wants to be lazy. So if you can find your A players, then you've got to find what motivates them. Is it they're aligning to your values, the money? Is it like ego? What is it? Very, very important. What's been one of your biggest successes to date? I suppose our biggest success to date, especially in Hamilton's.
It's an industry where there's a lot of big fish. know, Hamilton Eye and E, we're sort of like an SME, you know, but our competitors are down as broad spectrum, you know, like really big players. So to be able to play in this industry and play at their level.
is a boon. It's amazing to be able to go toe to toe with multinational companies and sometimes do it better and win projects over them and be considered in the industry like experts. So that's a massive for us. That's massive for me personally. I love that. we, from one or two people ripping around in some work boots to having 30 trucks, we can do that. We can play at that level.
So it's great. then, Nico, what is next for you? What's the next five years look like for you? We're to expand through Queensland. We're planning on expanding our services into the sort of...
some more of the technical spaces. Like recently we added some type V services, is a gas, additional gas service, some more mechanical services like valve servicing, other bits and pieces, but more physical locations throughout Queensland and maybe interstate as well. So just really growing our capabilities to do larger scale projects, larger scale maintenance programs and other bits and pieces like that. Exciting. That is very exciting. Yeah. So who's your target?
So Target customers, for us personally, we're hydrocarbon specialists so anyone in the hydrocarbon space like oil and gas, anyone that works on hydrocarbons, mining, we do a lot of quarry work and whatnot, but we also moved heavily into the infrastructure space so government projects, water utilities and stuff like that, we actually do a lot of utility projects. So this has been really exciting, I've been in oil and gas for a while as well and mining and
So I do get a bit excited and I still don't understand everything he does But if you are in the space Nikko is the guy to talk to when it comes to electrical industrial engineering instrumentation He's a smart cookie. He's a smart smart cookie. I like being to make myself dangerous Exactly exactly. So this has been really fun. We're in a beautiful location Actually, we are sitting opposite the story bridge in Brisbane on a lovely winter's day here. So thank you
Thank
you Nicholas, it's a pleasure. look forward to watching what you do in Hamilton and its present space and you keep kicking goals. It's been excellent to watch. Pleasure. Thank you.