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Transcript of the interview is below:
Kayley Harris:Â My next guest is familiar to our audiences. Ritchie D has previously hosted a technology segment on behalf of Bing Lee right here at 2GB and all of our network stations. But these days, he’s out on his own with a new venture, one I thought Reverend Bill would be excited about. Now Ritchie has taken his passion for innovation and technology and applied it to the construction and building sector, which as we all know is going through some pretty tough times at the moment.
Global shortages of materials and the massive disruption to supply chains means everything. And I mean, everything is getting more expensive. All these costs get passed down to guess who? Right? Us. Exactly. But there are millions of dollars worth of construction and manufacturing materials lying around unused in Australia. I didn’t know this. And Ritchie has come up with a way of getting these materials back in the system at a lower cost than new imports. I think it’s fascinating. He’s the founder of a business called Superyard. Now it’s a marketplace that connects construction businesses looking to buy or sell unused or excess materials that just could be sitting idle in their yards. And it’s a pleasure to have him in the studio. Good day, Ritchie.
Ritchie Djamhur: Oh, good afternoon. And I do have to say it’s like the strangest deja vu to be back here in a completely different reason for being here, but I’m really glad to be here. And you’re looking great. It’s been a while, Kaylee.
Kayley Harris: Oh, thanks Ritchie. I can’t help but think of you every time I hear a Bing Lee ad. They make me laugh out loud because they’re still so funny.
Ritchie Djamhur: They’re fantastic.
Kayley Harris: Yeah, they’re terrific. But it’s great to have you here in your new venture, Superyard. Now every day at the moment, we seem to be seeing stories about building companies going under. There’s been quite a few very large companies that have gone under in the last six months or so, both here in New South Wales and in Queensland. What are some of the factors that you’ve seen that have impacted the survival rate of these companies? Some of which are very small family businesses.
Ritchie Djamhur: Yes. And I hate hearing those stories. I’ve lived in the construction industry now for the last nearly three years. And it’s always heartbreaking to hear those stories, particularly when they’re small businesses run by people who in good faith, buy materials, hire really talented people to build buildings, sometimes large buildings, sometimes just single story houses, only to not be able to finish those projects. And there are a multitude of reasons. One of them is the delay in being able to find those materials. If you wanted to buy steel, timber and other materials, it became a really hard thing to do to be able to find those materials. And because people, especially small businesses, have got cash flow issues, they were having to pay the supply for certain materials that they did get. And then they weren’t able to get any money back from customers that were expecting their houses to to be built. And then there were cash flow issues.
Kayley Harris: Yeah. So it’s a catch-22.
Ritchie Djamhur: Oh it is.
Kayley Harris: But can I ask you this? Where do most companies in Australia get the building products from? Are we sourcing a lot of stuff from countries like China or from other countries, or are we producing a lot of it here? I mean, I would imagine with timber, would it be a lot?
Ritchie Djamhur: Timber was coming from Russia to be honest.
Kayley Harris: Wow.
Ritchie Djamhur: Yeah. There’s this product called LVL and it’s a very strong high tensile kind of product. And it’s actually glued, layered wood that’s put together. And they’re used as beams. Now, 50% of the LVL volume was coming out of Russia. So when-
Kayley Harris: Has that all stopped now with the Ukraine situation?
Ritchie Djamhur: It has. That’s right. And so now it’s harder to get that material. And what happens with demand and supply? The prices go up. The other side is steel. That’s another big one as well. Steel frames are being put in houses. And I was talking to one of the companies that I actually buy cranes from. And he said that pre-COVID, the price of steel in Europe was 250 Euros. And to give you an idea, one Euro is about 1.40 Australian. Post-COVID, it was about 500 Euros.
Kayley Harris: Wow.
Ritchie Djamhur: After the conflict with Russia and Ukraine, it’s gone up to 3,000 Euros a ton. So we’ve had more than a tenfold increase in the price of steel. The flow on effect of that is still not felt. What they’re saying to me is that the price rises will actually start coming through from April next year.
So what we’re seeing right now is, from where I sit, a shockwave that hasn’t even reached us yet. And so, yes, we’ve got businesses that are really struggling and I wanted to try and find a way, even within the construction business that I work in, to be able to reinvent procurement, trying to source materials. Because I walk around our yard over at our business and I can see a lot of materials just sitting there, sitting idle. And when I visit other businesses, it’s exactly the same. And I thought there must be a bit of way to connect those businesses together and share stock that isn’t being used. Hence, Superyard became an idea that was thought of about 12 months ago. And today it’s a reality.
Kayley Harris: Stepping back a minute. You said before how you’ve been involved in the construction industry for about three years now. Where did that interest come from, coming from technology where you’ve come from to construction? Is it a personal thing?
Ritchie Djamhur: Yeah, look, I have to say that I was able to through my curiosity and I guess, wanting to expand my horizons. And I have to thank the Lee family as well for giving me the ability to-
Kayley Harris: The Bing Lee family?
Ritchie Djamhur: The Bing Lee family. Being able to find ways to up-skill myself into areas, not just about technology and products, but also general business management. And I was able to move into a completely different industry. And it is a really interesting industry. The workers are genuine. They work really hard.
Kayley Harris: Tradies, blokes.
Ritchie Djamhur: Tradies. Yeah. But look, it’s also quite a diverse population of different workers in the engineering side, supervisors and administration side as well. And no matter what the business is, whether it’s Bing Lee or construction, for me, it’s all about relationships and being able to understand the needs of the client, as well as build a great team that you have, like a high performance team. And so I felt that being able to reinvent myself in a completely different industry, I was ready for a career pivot and I found my feet. And I’ve thrived in it. It’s been fantastic.
Kayley Harris: Well, to do that at a time when we are going through a pandemic is astounding.
Ritchie Djamhur: Yeah. It was. And it was quite interesting. I work in the civil side of the industry. So I’ve been lucky in that from a civil perspective, a lot of government jobs did continue. And as you know, last year, they really doubled down on it because they saw that there was a way to keep employment going because it’s such a large percentage of the economy.
Kayley Harris: So, would it be fair to say that Superyard, is it more focused on small business construction, or do you look at big companies as well?
Ritchie Djamhur: That’s a great question. We will service construction businesses of any size. I was lucky enough to just go down the road here to the Build Expo, which was at the ICC a couple of months ago. And I stood there with my pamphlets, and the majority of the people that came up to me and showed interest were actually small businesses, moms and dads, people that didn’t have a way to find materials, but also might have had tiles, bricks, some timber left over that they were trying to get rid of as well. And so it goes both sides. But on the other side, it’s a great question. We also are talking to major suppliers in the industry as well. One global manufacturer called PERI, they do formwork and scaffolding. The local company, PERI Australia, have actually signed up. And so they are now offering their excess materials through Superyard.
Kayley Harris: It’s an amazing concept. So simple when you think about it. Why hasn’t someone thought of this before? It’s one of those ideas, right?
Ritchie Djamhur: It is. The reason I went through such a long period of research and especially trying to talk to people within industry was to find out: was there actually another service that I just hadn’t heard of? And it turned out you’ve got Gumtree, Facebook marketplace, but they’re not specific to construction. And so my idea was to find a specific service that would provide the solution for the industry. I couldn’t find it out there. So I just made one myself.
Kayley Harris: And do you have a particular passion for the sustainability side of it? Because it is important to a lot of people these days, where the products come from and if they have been sourced sustainably.
Ritchie Djamhur: Yeah. Look, I think we talk a lot about the shared economy, the circular economy. It’s funny because I have a couple of young kids and they are always talking about being able to recycle, reuse. And it’s great to be able to have a business that actually services the construction business within that kind of mindset. Sustainability is really important. If you look at the contracts that you sign, when you are a civil subcontractor, a lot of it talks about signing up to sustainability, reducing the use of fuel, trying to reuse water. This is just another element of being able to find a way to reuse materials that can be reused over and over again.
Kayley Harris: Yeah. So I guess now the obvious question, how does Superyard make money out of this?
Ritchie Djamhur: Well, 2GB is going to be a sponsor soon and advertising Superyard, so there’s that.
Kayley Harris: There’s that side of it.
Ritchie Djamhur: Once we get a fairly large volume users, I would love to be able to monetize it by offering advertising space, maybe a membership fee. But one thing we definitely settled on was not to go down the sales commission route.
Whenever I’ve tried to buy materials on behalf of the companies that I’ve worked for, there’s always a brokerage service fee or a commission fee. We want to make it as easy as possible. So the lower the cost we can provide to our clients or our members, the better. And if we can do that through advertising, maybe boosting listings, if people list something, we just want to keep the price down as much as possible. I’m really passionate about sustainability and being able to power the circular economy of the construction industry. So it started off more as a passion project, but I’d love it to be able to be self-maintained through some small revenue.
Kayley Harris: So who would be your typical client? Would it be the mum and dad who are trying to source stuff for the home? Or would it be the actual builder who’s building the home for them?
Ritchie Djamhur: It would be the builder that’s building the home for them, 100%, because they’re struggling to find timber. They’re struggling to find steel. And there are companies out there that have got this stuff sitting in yards all over the place. So there’s two sides to that equation. In a marketplace, you’ve got the vendor, or the seller, and the buyer. My job right now is to find as many vendors that have yards full of stuff and help them digitize it, because that is actually a big-
Kayley Harris: Because once you’ve got the product, then you can start talking about it.
Ritchie Djamhur: That’s right. Exactly. And we’ve started that with PERI and a couple other companies have come on board and they’ve started to load products up. So I’ve got a lot of so-called browsers that are going on just to see what’s there. And hopefully, they will also start to upload products once they’ve finished a project and have got leftovers. I’d love to see those go up as well. And then hopefully, we’ll start to see this sort of circular sharing mindset happen within the construction industry.
Kayley Harris: So if there’s anyone listening who has a business that may have products out the back, sitting in their yard, what’s your message.
Ritchie Djamhur: Oh, look, we are here to power the circular economy. We’re here to help lower your cost because you might be able to find it cheaper by finding it secondhand, but maybe potentially unused. So just visit superyard.com.au and have a look there. You might be able to find what you’re looking for. And if you’ve got stock that you’d like to get rid of to help your own cash flow, actually I’m personally helping people upload those products too. Because the technology adoption within the construction industry in this area, I think is a little bit lacking.
Kayley Harris: I was going to ask you that. With your technology hat on previously, technology in the building industry, is there a lot of synchrony there, or not really? Are they got to do some catching up to today?
Ritchie Djamhur: I’m dragging them, kicking and screaming. I think the biggest challenge is to make it as easy as possible. And I’ve built this to make it simple to use, but also have a really good utility value. I’ll give you a quick example of that. A lot of business that I know don’t even know what stock they have in their yards. So they don’t have an inventory management system.
Kayley Harris: When they do an audit or something?
Ritchie Djamhur: Yes, an audit. Exactly. Stocktakes and those kind of things. What I provided within Superyard is actually a basic inventory management system. So they could actually put all their stock up there, hide it, and then only release stock that they want to show to the membership.
Kayley Harris: Oh, wow.
Ritchie Djamhur: So I’m doing that as just part of the service. It’s all for free right now. And I think that could be a benefit for many businesses that are just trying to slowly, slowly digitize their business.
Kayley Harris: It’s a wonderful idea and really appreciate you coming in to share it with us, your website, superyard.com.au, Ritchie.
Ritchie Djamhur: That’s the one.
Kayley Harris: Thank you so much for your time.
Ritchie Djamhur: My pleasure.