In this episode of the NTP podcast we chat with Sam Bricknell, Co-Founder and Director of Techvisa. Techvisa are the go-to in the tech space for Immigration advice, with a combined 30+ years of experience. They have worked with some of Australia’s largest VC funds supporting their start-up portfolio members to navigate the process of securing talent offshore.
We chat about Sam’s career to date, his experience Co-Founding a company and advice he would give to younger tech professionals. Hope you enjoy the episode!

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Show Notes

Here you can source all the things we have talked about in the podcast whether that be books, events, meet-up groups and what’s new in the Newcastle tech scene.

• • Sam’s LinkedIn
  • Tech Visa’s LinkedIn
  • Tech Visa’s Website

Find all local Newcastle Technology Events

• Event’s Page

James MacDonald
Welcome to another episode of NewyTechPeople. On today’s episode, we’ve got Sam Bricknell from Techvisa.

Sam Bricknell
Welcome, Sam. Thank you.

James MacDonald
My tech visa. Normally on this podcast I’ve got technical people from Newcastle this hour and we’re going to have a conversation about something slightly leftfield because Tech Visa operates in our tech environment, super pertinent, the current environment in Newcastle. So for those who don’t know either who you are or who tech Lazarus. Yeah, there’s a bit of background.

Sam Bricknell
All right, so start off with me first. I guess. So coming from a recruitment background myself as well. So I spent ten years in recruitment, all with Hudson. Yeah, like kind of different roles within that as well. So mostly in the IT space. So I have an understanding of that kind of area. And then for the last bit, I was working up in Brisbane recruiting recruiters and Hudson.

Sam Bricknell
And I guess the thing that kind of started the business idea for me was the person who was doing all of our visas coming into Hudson. Every time you speak to him like he’d be in London or he be in Thailand or he’d be in Melbourne, I think I want that. Like that lifestyle, that’s pretty good. This is all pre-COVID.

Sam Bricknell
So obviously everyone was going to change their desk and this was a bit of an anomaly. So yeah, how did. I guess went back started and then and then started the business after that one.

James MacDonald
What did you study?

Sam Bricknell
What’s that.

James MacDonald
What did you study?

Sam Bricknell
It was migration law.

James MacDonald
Yeah.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah. So it’s a two year course, went back and did that one. And then I guess it’s like anything when you start a business the first year, you go backwards and you’re trying to just kind of like clambering for if you can kind of get through. Yeah. And then we really decided like we rebranded, went on to tech visa and then it, it just started to happen off the back of that.

Sam Bricknell
Once you really specialize in something, you get to know it really, really well. You’re not having to go back and research everything. Yeah. Like every time someone calls you, I have to go back and, like, go through legislation. It takes hours and hours to do. Yeah, because we’re only in this space looking after a few types of visas that for certain sectors we can just give you the answers straight up and just know what we’re on about.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, we’ve got a few competitors. They’ve got some amazing clients in our space that we’d love to work with. Yeah, but in saying that, like we’ve kind of, yeah, we’re across the market, so all those little kind of tech start ups and scale ups that are coming through, if our name is always thrown in the mix whenever they start hitting this problem, this time to scale, they’re really struggling to find people, the local market.

Sam Bricknell
So, you know, people are trying out there on Slack or something like that. Our name pops up and yeah, because we’re known in that space.

James MacDonald
Yeah.

Sam Bricknell
And it’s working.

James MacDonald
So Tech Visa was born out of that. You know, you obviously you’ve seen that opportunity. I think probably the COVID played. I think it ruined a lot of businesses, but probably created opportunities for tech visa as well, given the shortage has been talent and we now face in Australia definitely.

Sam Bricknell
And it’s everything that’s kind of pops up. You think, okay, this is going to this going to hurt us, it’s going to destroy the business. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but actually every time there’s a problem or something pops up, it means that people need more help to to navigate whatever’s happening. And at one stage there during COVID, I think it was 400 people a day allowed into the country.

Sam Bricknell
And that was it says plane load, like just planes coming in. That was pretty much empty. Yeah, but if you’re an engineer or a designer or something, then were able to help to get people in during that time. So that really helped to solidify us in the market. And also just with layoffs that were happening right at the start of COVID as well, all those transfers of people moving between companies, you know, you’re on a visa, you’ve been let go, need to transition somewhere else.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah. And it’s just actually kind of caring as well. So we weren’t kind of going out to think, okay, this is a money grab. How can we make more? It’s like, okay, this is actually this sucks for these people. Yeah. Been let go. You’re on a visa, a temporary you’ve got 60 days to do something about it. How can we actually help you, like, sleep better at night by knowing that you’ve got someone’s got your back helping out wherever we can?

James MacDonald
Yeah. I think there’s a lot of power in business as well, tackling things from that aspect. Obviously you’re in business from a commercial aspect, right? You’re mate, you’re making money end of the day. But I think any time you can attack business from a Yeah, I that our community or our individual helping the actual individual perspective, the commercial outcomes on the back of it will pay dividends.

James MacDonald
Yeah, but not attacking it from the pure commercial.

Sam Bricknell
No. You don’t go in for money. No. And it’s like the community side of things is huge in this space. You look at everything, it’s happening in Sydney like we’re down at the Blackbird thing this week. We did some tech last week and it’s all kind of everyone’s out to kind of help each other and obviously people are fighting for talent, that’s one thing.

Sam Bricknell
But outside of that, no one wants to see other people fail in this space. Zero knows how hard it is to start something from scratch.

James MacDonald
Completely agree. And I think that community aspect, that’s definitely been a big part of our success. But I think a lot of small companies as well as I guy building community and actually engaging in that community as opposed to being just seen as somebody commercially profiting off a community. Actually something engages and gives back and helps facilitate in that space is that’s sort of the differentiator, I think.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, definitely the partnerships we’ve got along the way. So that’s not nothing is, I guess, exclusive, but we partner really closely with like Airdrie and Blackbird and a few of the other VCs. So again, it’s not like they say you have to use tech visa, but it’s just our name is put out there. When companies are having that real struggle.

James MacDonald
And not.

Sam Bricknell
Having to hire. Yeah.

James MacDonald
Yeah. You mentioned Kiva just before and obviously we went pretty deep in lockdowns and real trickle of people coming in. But now those restrictions is starting life. What sort of changes have you seen with, you know, more talent coming into the country?

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, I mean, it’s open, I guess. Yeah, restrictions have lifted. It’s not necessarily post COVID, but yeah, people can come in more freely now. I guess the biggest thing for us is things are working, like things are starting to move along. They clearing the backlog of visas for people offshore. But up until really recently, we just couldn’t give any clarity on timelines, like if you’re a recruiter in the UK and we launched a visa for you late last year, it might still not be through, but someone who lodged two weeks ago might have been approved already.

Sam Bricknell
So it was just we’ve got no control over that aspect of it. Yeah, but, but yeah, it’s just been like it’s the changes that have happened in the last maybe six months or so has been the best for the market because things are starting to clear. You know, there’s more people coming through, more people coming into the market, which means there’s more kind of movement happening here as well.

Sam Bricknell
Plus even with funding, it’s certain markets. Yeah, okay. It’s dried up a little bit, but other ones have popped up and there’s more kind of going into areas like Climate tech, for example.

James MacDonald
So yeah, no. Yeah. So you’re saying are you seeing more and more companies, obviously, given there’s a massive talent shortage, starting to look at other options? I think most companies traditionally where, hey, I want to hire somebody locally, they’ve got to be in the office five days a week. I’ll put an ad on sake and I’ll find the best, you know, available.

James MacDonald
Yeah, You can’t do that with technology talent anymore. Yeah. And I think people are starting to look at different avenues. Have you seen a bit of an increase in acceptance of companies sponsoring? Is that a That’s a trend going that way?

Sam Bricknell
I wouldn’t even say to trend. It’s always been a thing where if you’ve never done it before, it’s too hard basket. So like, why look at it, You know, we’ll just find someone local. It’s going to cost too much, it’s going to take too long. And that’s where the education piece from us comes in and like, say, agencies we partner with as well.

Sam Bricknell
It’s when you shortlist, it’s not just saying he got his resumé for developer from Brazil. It’s like, okay, he’s a it’s a problem for you. But we’ve also got a solution that only costs this much. It’s going to take approximately this long and yeah, they might be an absolute standout in the market as well. So it opens up their talent pool massively if they’re open to looking at it.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, but we get it as well. You don’t want to you don’t want to go through that process if you don’t have to. If you can find local talent 100% like and we’re up for that as well. Like we want to make sure that everyone gets like the easiest solution, but it’s only if you need that really senior person in a market that’s not that mature in Australia yet and you need to get someone in to help to train up those grads underneath.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah. Then this is a solution you’ve got to look at by.

James MacDonald
Ah, excuse my naivety and maybe some of those others in the market that put it in not too hard basket. Yeah, but if I’m in the technology space at the moment looking for a senior engineer and I’ve exhausted the market and I need to start looking at these type of options and what’s that process working with somebody like tech based look like.

Sam Bricknell
So first age I guess is just, yeah, give us a call and send through the rest of the people that you’re looking at potentially moving ahead with. Yeah. So there’s no point in getting in touch necessarily like setting out if the problem’s not there, like when you find that person, we can do the whole process, like as I was, I guess one piece of work.

Sam Bricknell
So say you’ve got that resume comes through to you from a developer from overseas, say they’re from Germany or something. We assess it first for you and just go, okay, yes, they’re eligible. We’ll come back to you with the best options. And I guess coming from that recruitment background as well, we’re not just kind of, okay, we’ll do a four year visa and we’ll just sort that the short term.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, we look at it and kind of go, okay, we get attraction is one piece, but retention is key and keeping those people in your business. So we’ll look at it and say, okay, what are the options right now, but also in the medium to long term. So again, we can sponsor for one year and then they’re eligible for PR within that 12 months.

Sam Bricknell
So let’s do that because then they’re engaged with the business. Hopefully a lot of the work there, but the path they’re working on. Yeah, but they’ve also know the company’s got their back, you know, they’re looking at those longer term options there. So once you send the resume through to us, we’ll assess it. Come back to you with a breakdown of costs, kind of timelines, what it all looks like.

Sam Bricknell
And then it’s a decision of whether you move ahead with that person or not. But at least, you know, you’re not going through five or six rounds of interviews before saying, okay, we want to do this. Then really realizing it costs too much or it’s not something you want to do. Yeah, we can get to that problem earlier.

Sam Bricknell
You know, by the time you get to those next rounds of interviews. Yes. Okay. We’ll move ahead to this person. We know the risks. We know everything about it. We know the costs.

James MacDonald
Yeah. Now, you mentioned the retention piece there. Do you find that companies that do sponsor somebody originally there, is that that extra loyalty of somebody that, you know, brought helped, you know, helped facilitate a visa and potentially helped facilitate them getting a PR you say like there’s a you no longer tenure and more loyalty from a professional in that kind of perspective.

Sam Bricknell
It’s hard to say because we don’t necessarily do the recruitment piece, so we don’t see the retention of the Aussie citizens and stuff. But yeah, there’s an element of it definitely, and especially if you look at it and you go to them with a plan, it’s not just, yeah, we’ll sponsor you and we’ll look at the other steps down the track.

Sam Bricknell
It’s like, okay, this is this is our plan. This is what we’re doing. We want to keep you here. So yeah, I’d say there is like an element of loyalty there as well.

James MacDonald
Yeah. Yeah. And which sort of like we obviously invest in the tech industry at the moment. Is there any particular type of roles that you’ve seen the most success with the design engineering aspects of that more senior space hard to fill? Is there any sort of success stories that you can sort of speak to?

Sam Bricknell
I think honestly, everything is pretty hard to fill at the moment. Like across market, anyone is kind of feeling the same pain, whether you’re looking at recruitment or you’re looking at marketing or you’re looking at, you know, the senior engineers. Yeah, like I guess the is a few areas that we we really enjoy being. And so there’s a company on the Gold Coast called Gilmore Space Technologies.

Sam Bricknell
So they’re building rockets, so they’re actually sending payloads into into space and you just can’t find that kind of talent onshore. Yeah. So it’s companies like that that you look at. Okay, we know that we’re actually helping to build up an entire ecosystem with bringing the right people in this space. It’s like Rocket Lab in New Zealand, you got Space X in the US and they’re attracting some of the best talent to come over, and that is creating an entire market of space technology in Australia and again in like climate tech as well.

Sam Bricknell
There’s one over in Perth that we work with called Oulu and they like they grow seaweed, so it’s carbon capture. Then they have to see when they make plastics from that as well. So it’s all this kind of stuff where is no, we’re a part of this kind of bigger solution as well and kind of what’s going on.

James MacDonald
Yeah, and it seems like it’s a partnership model, right? Yeah. You know, you’re actually helping facilitate these companies and then continue to grow their teams as well. Yeah. And it’s not just, you know, a company come in years once and then know never to be seen again. Yeah, it’s more of that partnership model.

Sam Bricknell
Definitely. Yeah.

James MacDonald
Yeah.

Sam Bricknell
And that’s, that’s the fun part about it too. So it means you’ve got a relationship with the founders, it’s ongoing and you know, it might be they don’t sponsor anybody. There’s high locally. That’s amazing, but that’s great. But down the track, if they do need to, then we’re there and we understand their business. We know what’s going on.

Sam Bricknell
They don’t need to, I guess, reinterpret their whole business to another person down the track because, you know, we’ve got a stable team and it just means that, you know, they can come back and say we need another person, the same thing we did last time and like, bang, we can make it happen.

James MacDonald
Yeah, definitely. Do you have any thoughts on what’s going to happen in the next few years when it comes to the space? Do you just say and more and more talent coming in internationally to Australia? Any other thoughts or trends that you might be seeing?

Sam Bricknell
I think just mobility is big now, so it’s not just about people coming in and sitting at a desk like you said before. So like change the desk for five days a week. Now that mobility piece is is big. That’s why we’ve just recently opened in Singapore and we’ve got someone who does the US stuff for us as well, so companies can move people around depending on where the work piece of work is and they can be in the same time zone as the team who’s on that piece of work for the business.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, So I think it’s nothing’s going to change this so that people want to move around. People want to do different things. It just means it’s less of, you know, they have to come to Sydney and sit in Sydney because that’s where the job is. They could be able to move around a bit more. So hopefully that kind of comes through a bit where there’s a little bit of flexibility and in the visas where you can kind of come and go, but it still counts towards things like permanent residency and stuff.

James MacDonald
Yeah, I think that’s a definite trend that’s not going to go away, right? Yeah, kind of a change for Sarah. I’m fully remote. Yeah. And there’s now a bit of a hybrid or, you know, remote first type trend that will continue and I think that’s not going to stop. I think now people have been given that freedom and that flexibility and willing to give it back, right?

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, Yeah, definitely. And I’ve noticed too, like a lot of people we speak to, everyone was up for remote first and now it’s kind of coming back around like people quite like the hybrid sort of things. So you want to be in the office, you want that kind of bit of camaraderie, you know, you want some some kind of community building and just someone to kind of bounce off every down the end rather than kind of sitting at home and just communicating over Slack or whatever it is.

James MacDonald
Yeah, I think that’s part of human nature where, you know, being around other humans as well, you know, continue to play out. And I feel like individuals have gone through the fully remote stage more fully often stage before fully remote stage and now trying to figure out exactly what works for them. Some people continue to say fully remote, fully remote.

James MacDonald
I think that awaits them and others will find that that middle space as well. But I think there’s too many people out there knocking on doors to be back in five days away and.

Sam Bricknell
Not really.

James MacDonald
Know.

Sam Bricknell
How it works.

James MacDonald
Well, there’s a bit of a trend at the moment with some companies. Some countries are opening up with digital Nomad.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, stuff that stuff.

James MacDonald
Does that play in your space or is it.

Sam Bricknell
Well it can do because I mean yeah.

James MacDonald
To play against you.

Sam Bricknell
Know not necessarily. Yeah. So it’s with the digital nomad type stuff I guess you can’t just go and sit in the country and like there’s still tax laws that you need to abide by, You still need to be employed. They still need to have algorithms as.

James MacDonald
Question So yeah, is it something worth talking about? Like.

Sam Bricknell
All right, yeah. I mean, it’s the mobility piece that I was talking about before as well, so it doesn’t work against us. I guess everything is kind of placed hand in hand as well. So you look at Deal, for example, now, you’d think the fact that companies can pay people overseas and you can be fully remote, not even wants to be a developer and.

James MacDonald
Not I go, I’m going to have a house that question That’s a that’s a good opinion piece as well because I yeah I think yeah, yeah. Matters. A few countries are now offering visas in around digital nomads as well. Is that something you’re saying, you know, a growing trend or is that impacting your business at all?

Sam Bricknell
So I mean, it’s a trend because there’s a few countries that have kind of boarded up recently that tend to be kind of those ideal locations, you know, like Bali, I think. Yeah, happening. So for Indo, yeah, it’s, it doesn’t work against us. It’s a, it’s something which I guess it’s that whole mobility piece. You can’t just be in another country like ongoing.

Sam Bricknell
So okay, it’s something which is there, it might be in, in the meantime type thing but there’s still tax laws around that so people can’t just sit up there forever. They still need to move around. So visas are still going to be a thing that people need to access to get into other countries where they want to be longer term, too.

James MacDonald
Yeah, and I think yeah, you mentioned before like the individual part as well. It might not be the kind of Bali lived Bali forever, right? Yeah, I think it’s the opportunity to go to Bali potentially spends 12 months there and six months there and then you know, come back.

Sam Bricknell
And it can work for businesses. So if you’ve got say, a sprint happening as part of a piece of work that the company is doing and the people are in Europe, if they can come into, say, Bali for a short period to be a part of that sprint in the same time zone. Yeah. And not have to deal with some of the visa issues to get into Australia then yeah, that could work as well.

Sam Bricknell
But again, you’re still remote so it still you don’t have that community piece, you don’t have that kind of interaction day to day with other people in the office. So it’s kind of, yeah, it depends on the individual where they want to be. And some, like you say, happy to be remote so they can be in Bali. That’s fine.

Sam Bricknell
Other people just say, No, I want to be around the team. So yeah, they come to Sydney or Newcastle River.

James MacDonald
Yeah, definitely. Man. I think now the pace of a slow start and say more and more of is that diversity within teams as well. And not only diversity from a Yeah, from a male and female perspective but actually diversity of different backgrounds. Yeah. And as you know, there’s a lot of opinion pieces out there and a lot of success stories around companies building in more diverse teams and people from different backgrounds.

James MacDonald
And yeah, having successes to that I think. Is that a trend I guess with, you know, I guess again, more people coming in internationally on that you saying some of the tech teams that you’ve helped out.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah like I don’t see anyone who’s doing it like as a deliberate kind of I guess hiring strategy or anything since just be, you know, hire the best person for that role and what you’ve got open at the moment. And so if it happens to be someone who is from overseas, then great, let’s get them in. Yeah, nothing we kind of see too is if you get, say, for example, one Brazilian developer in, you tend to build out a whole team of Brazilian developers as well because it’s all kind of community and they all tend to know each other like went to uni together or something like that.

Sam Bricknell
It’s a similar kind of knowledge base and tech stock that they’re across.

James MacDonald
And if you’re on something that’s working.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it doesn’t always work. But yeah, so diversity is kind of yeah, it comes in, goes with different teams and everything, but it’s, I guess that’s part of what we do is, you know, if we’re getting people in from overseas and yeah, it does kind of broaden that out a little bit for the places too.

James MacDonald
Yeah, I think so, Yeah. I think like being in Newcastle and Newcastle, technology scene of ten years ago was traditionally white men and white men only. Yeah. And that’s changing and it’s slow but it’s, it is definitely changing. It is definitely significantly more diverse. Technology teams based in Newcastle than there was ten years ago. And it’s a good thing to say and I think most of the technology teams I talk to actually talk super positively about, you know, the different influences and diversity within the teams in the success of that.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah. So with the, with the clients we work with so say up here. Yeah, you’re not deliberately going out trying to like source people from overseas. It’s if they happen to come through, it’s not just excluding them straight away and saying you know, it’s too difficult not going to look at it. It’s just saying, okay, actually, you know, it could be good for the business.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, but actually they’re just the best person I can see for the role. So let’s explore it in a bit more detail. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, you decide you just want to go for someone who may be a bit more junior locally than fair play as well.

James MacDonald
So yeah, I think in Newcastle as well, we have that influence from the university as well. What people do come into the country to study at University of Newcastle and then trying to keep, you know, keep those people locally into that local tech ecosystem. Yeah, it’s something every benefit but does play in to a lot of those people do tend to have those visa issues and then companies maybe aren’t set up to to do that.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah and the good thing is there’s been some recent changes to where if you’re an international student, you come out, you finish your course locally at university. Then there’s the flight by Visa, which is like a graduate one, which means that there’s no outlay of cost to the business. The people can be in your business for two or three years and then they can look at what the next options are after that.

Sam Bricknell
So it’s yeah, and then it’s for the person, you know, they get to choose, okay, is Newcastle where I want to be and for the company they go, okay, is this the right person for our team and make sure it just fits from both sides too.

James MacDonald
Yeah, I think the biggest, the biggest, you know, kind of the issue that you’ve helped you solve, it’s just that it’s in the too hard basket. A lot of companies are definitely this is one step too far for me. I don’t know how to do it. Too expensive, too hard. Yeah, you know, put it to the side. But given the talent shortages of last couple of years, people are now having to look outside the square.

James MacDonald
Yeah. And that’s why, you know, having conversations with like with tech visa. Yeah. Hopefully, you know, simplifies that process and just provides that information upfront. So yeah.

Sam Bricknell
And like we know we don’t go into sales pitch, it’s just that we’ll chat through your situation. Go Does this work for you, this kind of timeline work for you, this kind of cost work for you? If it does, then great, yeah, we can help you out and we kind of sometimes like oversimplify it, but like from your perspective as a business, you shouldn’t need to go into the detail.

Sam Bricknell
Like, if you want it, we’ll definitely give you the detail. But for the most part, that’s our job. You’re paying a fee for us to take that problem off of your hands. Yeah, and then we get it. Yeah. The outcome for you as well. If there’s even things like, you know, writing statements around, you know, what the role is going to be or what the business does, we do all of that stuff.

Sam Bricknell
We just send it through for a bit of a quality check and then a signed off on letterhead. So you’re not sitting there having to kind of recreate the real what? Yeah, if it’s already been done, we know how it works. We know what we need to do to get it through. Yeah. And yeah, that’s, I guess what we can kind of bring to the table for.

James MacDonald
You know, I think there’s solutions like this and making it available to Newcastle based companies is, is Yeah, it’s going to be a continual benefit to the local technology community as well. Gets more people in Newcastle helps more Newcastle based companies attract and keep you know that talent and I think we can do to continue to and build the ecosystem here locally is definitely a benefit.

James MacDonald
I think this is just an aspect of which allows connect get you guys to come in. Share. Yeah, I’m doing a podcast this. I just think it can be a massive benefit to the like of, you know, technology ecosystem and adding to that and adding new talent and keeping talent in Newcastle.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah. And what you got too is location. I mean it’s so sellable to people overseas. We’re having a coffee down on the beach today and it’s just so idyllic. It’s where you want to be. I don’t know why you’d want to be anywhere else, actually. Like, it’s just, yeah, it’s sunny, it’s nice coffee and then. Yeah, it’s like walking distance to wherever you office is going to be as well, generally.

Sam Bricknell
So. Yeah. Nice. Amazing place.

James MacDonald
Yeah. Now you mentioned right at the start of the conversation that your background at. Yeah. Something I think might be interesting. The technology professionals that we speak to are our audience here is like that career change. I think a lot of technology professionals go through that. It’s not a traditional has to be go to school, go to university and follow that.

James MacDonald
You know, their direct career path is, you know, opportunities. People jump and change. Yeah, it sounds like you’ve done that. And you obviously you went down the recruitment path.

Sam Bricknell
Yep.

James MacDonald
Gone back, trained, then you career. Can you just give our audience, I guess, an insight into your thought process going through that? Was it just there’s an opportunity? Is that a passion?

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, it was. It was a scary. It’s all I can really say. So yeah, when you first doing it. So yeah, going back to study and it’s like I’m going to look at doing this change down the track, but everyone wants to kind of just put their toe in the water and just kind of test it while you’re still in your job.

Sam Bricknell
You know, you got that security not kids and mortgage and everything as well. So making that jump at that time was was pretty full on. I actually got to a point where I was doing a visa for somebody at Hudson and then I got a call from the business just saying, you can’t have both like you’re working here or you’re doing that thing for people who work here.

Sam Bricknell
So that was the push I kind of needed. Okay, cool. So I’m out then. Let’s do this. Yeah. And so I went out with my pipeline was one person. Yeah, the two. Okay. And that was it. Nothing else kind of on the radar, but it was the best thing I could have done because if you kind of, you know, you just putting your toe in the water and it takes a lot longer to kind of ramp up, if you’re all in, then you have to make it work.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah. So it was just yeah, a full year of, you know, working the the back room of the house in Brisbane with no air conditioning and no fan and just kind of trying to make stuff happen. And again, like I said, it’s kind of a lot of tire kickers coming in as well and just trying to, Yeah, asking questions of stuff that doesn’t actually come.

Sam Bricknell
Obviously spending a lot of time on things that just didn’t eventuate to anything. Yeah. And being I guess bootstrapped like we didn’t have funding. Obviously it was my little business and we just kind of keep it all off and it was just, yeah, it had to work. That was really it. So it did. And after a year of just kind of, yeah, working pretty hard in international, I kind of made it to a point where it started to actually get some traction.

Sam Bricknell
We had a couple of really good clients. We won in Sydney that all of a sudden started referring us on to other businesses. And then, yeah, we’re away.

James MacDonald
And us now. I think at times it said a lot of technology professionals I speak to as well that either in a job day to day, but they’ve got a passion project to the side and maybe working on that after hours a little bit. Yeah, they’re building a piece of software or an app or something like that. Yeah, and they want to jump in.

James MacDonald
But you know, again, kids and mortgage are the commitments in life forces, you know, forces you to hold back and stay within that. Yeah. That data stream it sounds like the fact that you’re nudged over that over over the edge was probably one of the biggest successes for you.

Sam Bricknell
It was a good thing for me. Yeah. But also it’s very different. So from a services business point of view, you know, when you do a piece of work, you get paid for it. Yeah, if you’re building a product, then you’ve got no income until that product in the market and it gets traction. So really different and I guess you need a lot more need a lot more runway as well.

Sam Bricknell
If you’re building a product, you need engineers and stuff. You can’t just sit there and just build it yourself and know that you’re covering off the build and like the UX and the UI and then the marketing aspect of it all as well. There’s so much more involved. So it doesn’t necessarily relate perfectly. But yeah, the nudge helped me.

Sam Bricknell
Yeah, and as long as if you’ve got that runway, then yeah, the only way to kind of make it happen and make it happen quickly is going all in.

James MacDonald
Do you have any that, that first you must have. I know I’ve been through it myself. Yeah. I first years it’s stressful and it’s like any one piece of advice if you had one one key piece of advice that you give to anyone that’s going to go all in and start in their own business.

Sam Bricknell
I mean, the thing for us is when I first started, it was trying to be everything to everybody but that niche aspect that was key. Once we did that, you get known for that and then you get traction and it takes off. So that’s my biggest piece of advice.

James MacDonald
I love that advice.

Sam Bricknell
Is know your market.

James MacDonald
Not fantastic made out for any Newcastle based businesses who are struggling for talent attraction, especially in the technology space, may have seen a candidate come across their desk and be like, Oh, I need a visa and they need sponsorship. Don’t know how to do that. Too hard basket. What’s the easiest way to get in contact with you guys just for a conversation or some more information about that?

Sam Bricknell
That’s it. So just send us an email so it’s info at tech visa dot com today you and then we can get back in touch with you and just chat through the process and just send us anything. It’s just an inquiry and we can organize that conversation. There’s also contact us on the website as well. Yeah. And then yeah, from that point you can make that call of whether you send through the resume and then we can do that full assessment for you if you don’t even have a resume.

Sam Bricknell
I just want to know that you can be set up. Yeah. So that, you know, you can start targeting people who are here on visas then. Yeah, just get in touch that way as well.

James MacDonald
Appreciate it, Matt. I think that’ll be super helpful for someone. Companies likely. Yeah.

Sam Bricknell
Nice one.

James MacDonald
Yeah. Thanks for coming in.