Since launching his Airbnb-style caravan hire marketplace in 2015, Camplify founder Justin Hales has revolutionised the RV industry and developed a bright idea into a global, ASX-listed brand. He joined the First Act podcast to share some of the biggest learnings he’s gained in his rapid rise to success.

According to Justin, a chance conversation about a family camping holiday with his wife was the ‘aha’ moment that sparked the idea for Camplify. Jumping online to book an RV, Justin discovered a juicy gap in a popular market.

“I realised that only a couple of big commercial operators did that, and they were mostly focused on tourists from overseas,” Justin recalls. “For domestic tourists, there wasn’t much available. So it was quite challenging to book, very restrictive and hard to access.

“Yet, there were hundreds of vans just parked on the side of the street. I thought it’d be good if there was something like Airbnb so we could rent our neighbours’ caravan or motor home. I started researching and found that there wasn’t much available in that space.”

Having worked in another tech startup previously, which had listed on the ASX and then been acquired, Justin had a set of skills that was ripe for the task. So he set to work building a marketplace and online community that attracted holidaymakers and caravan, camper and RV owners from all over the country – and, eventually, the globe.

Justin Hales, Camplify founder.

A customer-first approach

Justin credits much of Camplify’s success to a willingness to listen to his customers’ suggestions and concerns while building the online marketplace.

“I wanted to build customers that would be with us for a long time,” he says. “I knew that if people were willing to rent their vehicle out, that would be a relationship with us, an ongoing repeat customer. So we surveyed people who owned vehicles and asked them what would make them do this? How would it be acceptable in their eyes? We listened to their suggestions and built that into the process for them.”

Justin then utilised Facebook groups to build a community and database, as well as meeting prospective customers face-to-face via “owners’ nights” in various cities to gain access to a broader feedback network.

“People could talk to us and talk to others, and we started to develop and evolve the platform based on what those customers wanted,” Justin reveals. “That was core to us building this big network of people who could use the platform on an ongoing basis.”

“It’s something we constantly do,” says Justin, who credits this customer-first approach with helping the company expand into global markets such as the U.K. and Spain. “It’s a core part of our business in every market we operate in. We put together a team of people who focus on those owners, talking to them and feeding that information back into our product, management and marketing teams. [Of course], there are local nuances, regulations and restrictions to take into account in every different market, so it’s very important that we continue that process of understanding those customers. This means we can build the right things in each one of those markets.”

Listen to Justin Hales on the First Act podcast:

Accelerator programmes for the win

So, how did Justin take Camplify from a simple idea to an ASX-listed, multi-million-dollar company? He says it was due, in large part, to enrolling in a business accelerator programme. For Justin, taking part in the NRMA Slingshot Pro Incubator programme was the perfect match for Camplify.

“That accelerator programme helped us to push forward really quickly, and through that, we raised our first $650,000 in investment after being in existence for about 14 weeks,” Justin says. “We got a lot of great connections and were able to have NRMA invest in us, which was a super important part of the process.

“If you want to build a big business that can operate in multiple countries and do so at speed, those accelerator programmes are valuable.”

Tips for capital-raising

When finding investors to help fund your business growth, Justin says how you pitch depends on your stage in your business progress.

“In the early stages, you’re essentially pitching the idea, the market potential and yourself,” he advises. “With early-stage startups, they invest in founders and in the fact that you will be able to execute, get a return, and deliver an outcome. Whether you’re passionate and an investible person is one of the key things at the start.

“Then it’s about knowing your numbers and doing your research, and that becomes more important as your company grows, and your capital raises get bigger,” he continues. “You’ve got to know your company and be able to look at what your data is telling you and what that means for the company’s future.

“Looking at trends in your business and external trends that affect you, and being able to analyse and put some hypotheses around those things based on this data, are some of the key things that owners need to think about in that capital-raising process.”

Justin’s best tip for entrepreneurs

Justin’s final advice for any entrepreneur is to embrace and learn from mistakes rather than fear them.

“I think it’s a lived experience, and you have to walk that path and make your own mistakes,” he advises. “Then you can learn from things and see how you made a decision and why. Every time you do that, if you’re smart, you’ll take a reflective moment to look at that and think, why did I do it that way? Could I have done it better? And if I face that similar thing again in the future, what will I do next time?”

Justin delved even further into how his business survived COVID and some of the growing pains that came with extremely rapid growth in this episode of First Act. Listen to the full podcast now.

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