Buildxact has been named by the Australian Financial Review as one of Australia’s fastest-growing companies. See the full list.
Think of the companies you consider to be some of the all-time greats. When you think of those companies, what are the common themes that tie them together on their road to success? Was it that they had incredible funding or opportunity, or that they hit the market at the perfect time, or was it simply just a stroke of luck?
When you think of the all-time greats like Tesla, General Electric, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, or even Wal-Mart, consider this one major common denominator that framed their success…their origin story. Each of these companies started with an original idea or “lightbulb” moment that revolved around solving a common problem or a desire to make our world better.
That lightbulb moment for Buildxact came in 2011 when founder John Allison realized that custom home builders desperately lacked simple software tools to connect them to their customers and suppliers that would ultimately help them to take control of their business and save time and money. Allison knew he could create a solution that could do just that, and thus Buildxact was born.
“From the homeowner talking to his builder, the builder talking to the supplier, it was all manual. The ability for the supplier to get visibility of what the builder was going to be ordering didn’t exist,” said Buildxact CEO David Murray. “That’s when we saw an opportunity for Buildxact to become the platform where the builder and the supplier do commerce and optimize and drive efficiency in the supply chain.”
Since 2011, Buildxact has grown to be the top construction management software provider in Australia, and the company is not stopping there. As part of their global expansion plan, the company launched its software into the Canadian market in 2019 and subsequently launched in the United States in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Nonetheless, Murray was excited to see the new markets validate the value proposition.
“We went from the start of the last financial year with less than 4% of our revenue coming from North America to finishing the year with more than 20% of our revenue coming from North America. We did that all digitally,” Murray said.
And the company is at a very different place today than it was a year ago.
“If we were having this conversation back in November of last year, we hadn’t sold one subscription to a supplier, and here we are, having launched a product in October, and we already have over 40 suppliers subscribed to Buildxact,” he said. “That’s an exciting achievement for us.”
There is no question that the software solution solves the many pain points of the construction industry and takes it into the 21st century.
“This is an industry that hasn’t had a focus on digitization, especially with this type of customer that we’re talking about,” Murray said. “When we look at it from the lens of how does each person in this industry work with each other, then we can go and apply technology and innovation in solving those pain points.”
In the end, Murray attributes Buildxact’s success to the employees who are working diligently to keep taking it to new heights.
“There are four things that underpin the success of the company. You need a sound strategy and the ability to execute that strategy. To do that, you need the right people to execute the strategy. You also need a culture where people feel engaged and have a sense of purpose where they don’t see coming to work as a chore because they love what they do,” he said.
Buildxact has already proved it serves a need for custom home builders and suppliers in the industry. Now it is about building on that existing momentum to maintain a continued growth path.
Read the full editorial feature: A bit of coding power transforms building design
