FOUR years ago, Newcastle startup Camplify was in a basement city office with its three part-time staff like mice on a treadmill trying to gain traction.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Today the caravan-share company has cracked the lucrative UK market, is set to launch this week in New Zealand and in spring will tap Spain and Portugal.
"We've gone from myself, Dave [Eddy, chief marketing officer] and Josh [Fisher, chief operating officer] doing everything - customer service, on-boarding customers, marketing, writing code, you name it - to a team globally of 40 staff," says CEO Justin Hales. "I don't do any of that anymore - my job is to get the best out of my team. It's a huge shift to give up the control and inspire and train other people to believe in what you are doing and help them to execute it."
Inspired by Hales' nostalgia for the camping holidays of his youth, Camplify began when he and his wife struggled to find a caravan to rent yet noticed many parked and unused around Newcastle.
The idea for what is dubbed the "AirBnB of caravans" came to him. After some hard graft he had a platform linking caravan owners keen to get a rental return on their wheels with holidayers keen to pay.
Camplify forecasts it will have 4000 caravans or road vans on its books in Australia by Christmas. By then it expects to have 1000 in the UK, 400 in NZ and 200 in Spain/Portugal. Demand has driven its decision to expand overseas, despite the challenges in "localising" the Australian business model to suit the very different markets.
Mr Hales says the enthusiasm of both caravan owners and holidayers has carried the company forward, so too the "Instagram van life" movement, consumer demand for simpler, wallet-friendly holidays and a rebirth of cool with camping.
Once Camplify is up and running in Europe, it will look to see what other countries are for the picking.
And then, maybe in four years or so, weighing up with investors and its board whether to become a listed company: "It's probably a bit early to preempt it but what we are trying to do is go as hard and fast as we can to see where we get to."
