Kane Tyler Smith

Kane Tyler Smith Building Perth's private tradie network
⚑ Built Smartfix to $30M
πŸš€ Founder of Hypotential
πŸŽ™οΈ Unlocking Business Podcast
πŸ‘‡ Join my newsletter

8+ years building one of Australia’s largest residential multi-trades business from the ground up, reaching $30M in annual revenue and serving thousands of homeowners across WA. Now launching Australia’s first direct trades and services booking app with built-in home logbook tracking, and rolling out a monthly home maintenance subscription to make essential services more affordable and accessible. Through Hypotential, I coach and mentor small businesses in the trades and services space, sharing real-world systems, strategies, and lessons learned from the trenches. My goal is to help founders grow with clarity, care, and precision. Whether it’s tech, coaching, or fixing homes, my mission is clear, raise the standard of home services across Australia. Don't forget to be human.

π“π«πšπœπ² π…π«π²πžπ« in the studio today on the other side of the mic!Great conversation around branding, marketing and podcastin...
10/09/2026

π“π«πšπœπ² π…π«π²πžπ« in the studio today on the other side of the mic!

Great conversation around branding, marketing and podcasting.

Episode live in a few weeks.

10/09/2026

What can trade businesses learn from the corporate world?

I had Paul O’Neil from Plumbing Bros West Coast on Unlocking Business Podcast.
Paul's taken a pretty different route into trades.

He spent years in corporate leadership, including senior management roles with Optus, before moving into small business and eventually the plumbing industry.
What I enjoyed about this conversation was comparing the two worlds.

There were also a few things Paul talked about that made me reflect on what we've done at Smartfix over the last nine years, particularly around training and developing our people.
Plenty for business owners in this one.

Full episode is live now πŸŽ™οΈ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDLIQM9UY6A&t=2287s

09/09/2026

We hired too fast and too loose. That's the lesson.

Hiring the wrong people is expensive. Recruiting costs money, training costs money, and then you keep them too long because you've grown too fast to let them go.

At one point we'd hire anyone with a license just to get the numbers up. Thought it was about the numbers. It's not.

Getting a customer is expensive. Keeping them means giving them good service, which means you need good staff, which means you need good culture.

07/09/2026

Being the best at your craft isn't what grows a business.

That's Mitch's point, and it applies to trades and professional services equally. Most tradies are already doing good work. They care about it, so of course they are.

But quadrupling down on your own craft doesn't scale anything. What grows a business is the structure underneath it, the stuff that lets more people do the work, not just you doing it better.

A master of their craft with no infrastructure behind them will get crushed by someone with worse skills and better systems.

06/09/2026

Nine years into this business and we only started doing performance reviews two weeks ago.

Never done one before that. Mental when I think about it.

Most tradies aren't big talkers, especially about giving feedback. But once you actually sit down and ask the right questions, you'd be surprised how much they'll give you.

Wish I'd started this years ago. Would've helped us make better calls.

Couple weeks back I interviewed someone, went fantastic, offered him the job on the spot. We never do that.

Didn't work out. Had to get rid of him pretty quick.

People are hard to read. Managing them is harder.

04/09/2026

The more a business depends on the owner, the less it's worth.

Mitch knows this firsthand. He was in a family business with his mum, dad and brother from the age of 17.

His dad's health went bad. Mitch moved state for uni. His mum was left running things and didn't know what to do, so she went to the accountant for advice.

The accountant told her the business wasn't worth anything. It was all in Mitch's head. Might as well sell it for the value of the assets.

Your ute's worth 30 grand.

03/09/2026

I had Edward Maradona in the studio today filming an upcoming podcast.

Great conversation around fashion and deep into business!

Check out his business CABINET NOIR in Karrinyup Shopping Center.

03/09/2026

πŸŽ™οΈ EP19 Live now β€” Is Your Business Worth Anything Without You? | Dr. Mitch Catterall.

What is your business actually worth without you?

That question got personal fast in my latest conversation with Dr. Mitch Catterall.

Mitch grew up in his family's commercial fencing and security business, his granddad, his dad, him, since he was nine years old. When his dad's knees blew out and needed a double reconstruction, an accountant told the family the business wasn't worth anything because it all lived in his dad's head. $250k of contracted work in the pipeline, and it sold for close to the price of the ute.

Mitch calls it his "founding wound." It's a big part of why he now helps owner-operated businesses build the systems, people and structure that get the value out of the owner's head and into the business itself.

We also got into DISC profiling, hiring slow and firing fast, performance reviews, founder-led content, and why being brilliant at your trade won't, on its own, build a valuable business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2i8YmQjRtQ&t=1625s

02/09/2026

You can't expect anyone you hire to run the business like you do.

That was the lesson for Pete. Him and his mate are both good plumbers, so the plan seemed easy. Hire a plumber, send him out, job done.

Turns out that's not how it works. Whoever you bring in isn't running their own business. And a lot of the best tradies are the ones who've already gone out on their own.

Expect about 70% of what you can do from the guys you hire, no more.

They stopped expecting people to just get it. Started building training and procedures instead.

01/09/2026

You can charge $400 an hour. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.

Not because we're the cheapest. Our prices are right in the first place.

No heavy discounting. Just pricing that covers our overheads and lets us deliver properly.

We still win 50% to 60% of the jobs we quote.

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Clarkson, WA

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