“I never thought I’d end up in the motel business … we’ve bought the worst motels, hopefully in good locations. We’re bringing them back to their former glory and making it an experience to stay in these retro motels.”
However, Mr Strode said his wealth and earlier success in the tech world had not scratched the start-up itch, and he quietly began to build IPEX after builder Jake Porteous approached him with the idea for a new payment platform.
Mr Porteous had an office in the same building as Invoice2Go in the small NSW town of Erina and had watched the company grow from its humble beginnings.
Keen to get into the technology business, Mr Porteous pitched several start-up ideas to Mr Strode, before striking gold with a plan to create a payment system that gave building contractors and customers confidence that projects would be completed.
“I felt like I had already helped so many subcontractors solve their invoicing needs, but in construction there are a whole bunch of subcontractors who weren’t getting paid because of builder insolvencies,” Mr Strode said.
IPEX ring-fences funds intended for a specific project, ensuring that payments can only be made to approved subcontractors and suppliers linked to a specific project.
Without it, a client’s funds are normally paid directly into a builder’s bank account, from where it can be spent on any number of projects or expenses.
Mr Strode signed on as a co-founder and chief technology officer, and since launching the product in February, IPEX has attracted more than 1000 users in Australia and has more than $600 million in projects under management.
IPEX charges users a fee to use the platform, which Mr Strode compared to paying a “few hundred dollars” to insure every $1 million spent, and to have it allocated correctly and protected from builders collapsing. Clients include Winim, Spyre Group, Fortis INGWE Capital, Kervale and Nash Management.
Mr Strode said he hoped the service would become a standard payments platform across Australia’s $360 billion construction industry, in the same way PEXA had become the monopoly provider of digital property settlement services.
He achieved a similar feat at Invoice2Go in cornering an untapped market, after realising that existing invoicing software was substandard, while working as a software developer for Macquarie Bank.
Asked why he was going through the start-up challenges again, which would soon include tapping venture capital funds for investment, Mr Strode said that early retirement simply wasn’t for him.
“In your first start-up, you think you’re in it so that you can have an early retirement. But I don’t think anyone who’s had a successful start-up is ever going to have what it takes to retire. You just want to solve problems,” Mr Strode said.
