In this episode of the Priority Lane podcast, host Nigel Catt interviews Andrew Romeo, founder of Aerion Technologies. They discuss Andrew's journey in the tech industry, the evolution of his business, and the impact of AI on software development. Andrew shares insights on the importance of understanding client needs through the DevReady process, balancing creativity and technical skills in teams, and valuable leadership lessons learned while scaling his company. The conversation also touches on the historical context of app development, Steve Jobs, and how technology continues to evolve.
The business has shifted focus from educational tech to custom software solutions, particularly in the medical and pharmacy sectors.
AI is significantly impacting the software development process, allowing for faster design and prototyping.
The DevReady process helps bridge the gap between business needs and technical implementation, ensuring clarity and reducing project risks.
Leadership in a growing business requires establishing processes and checks to prevent issues as teams expand.
Understanding client needs is crucial for successful project outcomes, often requiring a mix of creativity and technical expertise.
Andrew emphasizes the importance of iterative improvement in both product development and business processes.
sound bites
"We help non-techs build great tech."
"It's always an iterative improvement."
"The market's really matured."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Andrew Romeo and Arian Technologies
03:01 Evolution of Priorities in Business
06:11 The Impact of AI on Business
09:43 Historical Context: The Rise of Apps
16:27 Understanding Client Needs and the DevReady Process
22:06 Balancing Creativity and Technical Skills in Teams
37:10 Leadership Lessons from Scaling Arian Technologies
The Priority Lane: Welcome to the Priority Lane podcast, the show where we explore the power of prioritizing and how real growth can be achieved by doing less but doing it better. I'm your host Nigel Catt and each episode I sit down with successful people to uncover how they filter out the noise and focus on what really matters. Today on the podcast, we're joined by Andrew Romeo from Aerion Technologies. How are you today, Andrew?
Andrew: Yeah, really good Nigel. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I'm usually on the other end running the DevReady podcast, but yeah, it's good fun to sit on the other side and answer a couple of questions.
The Priority Lane: Great, great. Well, I'm dealing with a professional, so that's fantastic to hear. Do you want to give a bit of background of who Andrew Romeo is and how you've come to this point?
Andrew: Somewhat. Somewhat. Yeah, perfect. So here I am. I've been running a software development company for 18 years, coming on 18 years in March. Started at the age of 23, back at uni, just rolled out of uni and went into our own little startup, as you call it at the time. Probably wasn't as popular a job into tech startups at the time, so we started a software business. Over the journey, built some products, have some products in pharmacy that we run and operate.
Andrew: As well as in medical space and just been custom building. So we've got a team of close to 50 people now across the organization building a lot of custom products, in-to-in mobile apps, helping business process automation as well as serving people with driving new customers. So, yeah, been having a lot of fun. The world's changing in tech. It's a lot of AI driving a lot of change as we all have seen and consumed. It's impacting our business and every other business that's around us, really.
The Priority Lane: Okay, okay. So this is the same business you started. You got 100% set up one business and that's it.
Andrew: Hmm. Yeah. I've been in Aerion. Yeah. One business. there's a couple now. So there's Aerion, there's Shopfront, which is a standalone, which is a product that spun out of Aerion. That's the pharmacy product. We acquired another business, which is called LapBase two years ago now, which is in the medical space, which is a SaaS product. And then we're spinning out our own little AI product as well. So over the journey, developed other offerings and services, but yeah, same business.
Andrew: Still developing and supporting clients with custom applications and it's evolved over time. The business is not the same as it was 18 years ago. It's evolved considerably over that period.
The Priority Lane: Okay, so that's what I was going to ask. So your priorities and your vision when you first started, when you were 23 to now, how have they changed and evolved?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, at the time it was a group of, there was five of us at uni that sort of started this business. There's two of us left now. So we've brought out all other little partners and bits and pieces, but at the beginning it was set up as a a couple of games, tech educational tech company. So we were supporting some.
Andrew: Clients like VSEC, is the Victoria Space Science Education Centre, did quite a bit of work in there and GTAC is Gene Science Education in Vic. There are a couple of specialty science centres that we did quite a lot of work in simulation tools around how to take, run a mission to Mars and educate kids in probably that year nine to twelve bracket. And that was a really fun time in the first couple of years of business. We started to realise that education probably didn't have as much money to fund the growth of the business.
Andrew: We started venturing into other opportunities just through a network really and it evolved into supporting people in the engineering space where we started building out applications in that world and that turned us into a little bit more enterprise mid-tier offerings and that evolved from there. But in the end we helped non-techs build great tech that's where we've landed as a business and that's not where we started. The world of technology is quite complex but 86% of projects fail there over time.
Andrew: Over budget or the complete wrong solution and we do our best within the DevReady process to ensure we do risk a project at the front. So that learning's come over failures within business and within projects. A critical failure of ours was a company called Esselord, big multinational global organization that we worked with over 10, 12 years ago now and that started DevReady.
Andrew: Where we basically worked through with one stakeholder and that already rings alarm bells in my mind now And basically built the products for him. He was a marketing guy sitting in Melbourne wanted to productize What was a touchscreen application at the time for third world countries great idea? Great concept. We had a leap motion, which is study that tech at the time was like a gesture sensor piece of technology and then from from there
The Priority Lane: Good.
Andrew: Yeah, was, you waved your hands on it. You'd be able to pick up gestures, touches, points, really clever. So you can turn any screen into a touchscreen app. It's a great novel idea. However, really didn't get any traction. So we built something every period of time, got no traction or buy-in when he took it to a conference. And I sat down with Anthony and Gordon was a critical team member at the time. He's left the business now and said, okay, we're going to build tech or we're going to build tech that people actually need want, desire.
Andrew: So we started what was a dev ready process then and that continues to iterate over time as to how do we protect the interest or de-risk as much as we can to really save face, to support clients, to reduce outcomes that are really going to matter and make a difference. So that's probably where the business is moving towards now and continuing to evolve to and it's always an iterative improvement really.
The Priority Lane: Okay, okay. There's a couple of points there that, yeah, I was gonna ask you one. But before I get onto that, you mentioned about AI. You talk about where this is gonna go in the future. How do you see AI impacting your business and the wider industry?
Andrew: Yes.
Andrew: Well, we're seeing an impact already. We're able to do more with less right now as a business. Just for me, I sit more in the early stage consulting and product consulting. So research is much easier. You open up the deep research, chat with your expertise, where I mostly use, run some deep research on product areas, et cetera. So the product consulting space has shifted over the journey we've built our own.
Andrew: It's a tool that helps with design, which is called DevReady AI, which when haven't really commercialized, it's more for us. People can play with it and have a look at what we're attempting to do. the effect it is, we can now design a product in weeks, not months. That's how we frame it, where we can look at features functions, look at UI and everything in between quite quickly and speed up process. So we're seeing a lot of efficiency come in because of AI.
Andrew: That's where, and then shifting into development now as well. So the market is changing, it's shifting, it's pivoting. We have people that are coming to us with a lovable prototype vibe coded, which means they're just chatting to a basically, know, helping me build something. And then we're picking it up, looking at the code, looking at the gaps and helping and commercialize it. So the market is shifting and there's different opportunities.
Andrew: I see it as a huge positive in terms of the space. It's opening up a lot more people to be able to do more. It's more for less effectively. But then you're opening up more inspiration in the space. Domain experts able to pick up, try things, build prototypes quickly with no tech knowledge, which is a huge bonus for people like us, because then we can get really clear on what they're trying to achieve without having to unpack for months that we used to do to try and figure out.
Andrew: Where they were going with the products and now where they really want to take it. So we don't have to really get too deep into mine because we can see a vision in a prototype or in something that we hack together. So huge opportunity for everyone out there that's got ideas and concepts. And I see it as just a benefit to what we're doing as a business today. Future state was still unknown. AI's continue to evolve. I don't think we know what the ending result is.
Andrew: But I know there's more efficiency in the space and it will continue to change so this could be ready for it.
The Priority Lane: So it's almost like the emergence of the internet again where the internet's burned on a whole heap of increased efficiencies, greater access to resources and information and knowledge. AI is sort of taking it to the next level again.
Andrew: Yeah, probably a hundredfold of what the Internet is in my mind. It's just an exponential jump and leap in terms of what is possible now to what the Internet was back in the day. It ended up being encyclopedic Britannica online type models. And these were the early starts of the Internet. Now we can just search and get knowledge or just ask the question we get an answer. And the likelihood of that being correct is quite high now. So.
The Priority Lane: Yep.
Andrew: Yeah, it's a significant leap in terms of information and knowledge here.
The Priority Lane: Okay, okay, Now, before we delve in any further, as you know, each episode we delve into history for a quirky historical fact for the month we're in, which happens to be February. And this episode we're covering Steve Jobs, which I'm guessing you've heard of. You're familiar with Steve and his work? Well, Steve Jobs was...
Andrew: You know a little bit about it, as we all do. Mr. Steve, and he's impacted our business significantly.
The Priority Lane: Well, yeah, yeah, so hey, this is no coincidence I've picked on Steve for this episode. So Steve was born February 24, 1955 and who of course, best known as the co-founder of Apple. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak incorporated Apple in 1977. They envisaged Apple as a company that would make personal computing accessible to everyone, not just technical experts. The Apple name came as a result of a visit to an Apple orchard. Steve Jobs found the name
The Priority Lane: Fun spirited and not intimidating and it also helped them appear before competitors like Atari in the phone book. You remember phone books? Yep.
Andrew: I do remember fine books, that one by the fine, with that little thing, used to dial and turn. Yeah, remember that.
The Priority Lane: Yes, yes, yes.
The Priority Lane: Skip forward 30 years and on January 9 2007 the first iPhone was unveiled. While the device initially featured only pre-loaded apps, its success and software capabilities created the market demand that led to the creation of the App Store the following year. The original App Store launched with 500 apps including Facebook, eBay, New York Times and a games and a whopping 10 million downloads took place within three days of the launch of the App Store.
The Priority Lane: Not to be outdone, Google quickly followed with the launch of its Play Store for the Android market. By year end, Globally App Store downloads surpassed 100 million. So Andrew, why do you think apps were so successful from day one?
Andrew: Huge.
Andrew: It became something that was just in your pocket. It more was beyond the app. It was the the actual phone and interface that changed the game in my mind. So we had a device that we could now touch and feel and made it easy for people to consume. Back in the day we had the Windows. What they did was they wrapped up their desktop app or the desktop windows and throw it on the phone. It was horrible to use. I don't know if you had one of those phones. You had the little stylus you had to try and click.
The Priority Lane: Yeah, yeah, I did, I did.
Andrew: So there was no change in interface. And this was the biggest shift which opened up the opportunity for app stores. But then the clever part was they made a network and a community for others to actually build on and build for. So that was really where the success came, where they got distribution and channel of people bringing product to it. So yes, they took 30% of the money that went through it. I think that model changed over time anyway.
Andrew: But from the perspective of it was the device that changed and created the App Store in my mind. They learned from iTunes and flew it all through. But yeah, the actual Apple phone changed the game and enabled the App Store to actually exist on the device. So the success was in what Apple did in the beginning. Their goal was to make personal computing accessible to everyone.
Andrew: And they made they took it to a device level which is now a commercial computer in your hand anyway So I think it was all UX which and design which changed the game. That's what Apple was synonymous for really
The Priority Lane: So what do you see as the biggest changes or developments from these early apps to the ones we have today?
Andrew: The early apps and we were a part of that earlier. We took took a year or two to figure out is this thing real? but then we started making these garbage little games which was we had a soccer app which was I don't know the name alludes me but it wasn't very successful. It was successful around the World Cup though. It was like a soccer tapping app and the balls sped up and got faster and faster and that was our premise to let's learn about what apps are and how to build one, deploy one. That was early venture so we started building little games. That one had some
The Priority Lane: Thank
Andrew: Yeah, I think 100,000 plus downloads during one of the World Cups, which was ridiculous, but only some ad monetizing, which wasn't much in the end, but that's okay. But we learn a bit. We learn about what is an app, what are people interested in, how do we potentially market our position for events. So we learned quite a bit from that experience. But yeah, in terms of the apps have changed now to become, there's still a lot of noise on the app store.
The Priority Lane: I Wow welldone
Andrew: The Apple App Store is very stringent in terms of what can get on an App Store these days. It's been easier to put anything up there. Now it's a lot more stringent. They want more quality coming through and not just junk. Though you can still find some junk apps out there. In terms of the change, was probably taken to the world of anything. It's early days, so everyone's just going to have a go at a play and they're becoming more complex. And then we get big enterprise coming in.
Andrew: And you've got now games on the phone like they were on the computer or PC where they were really basic at the beginning. once you get the early adoption, yes, there's some traction here. There's a marketplace. Then we get some bigger players coming in, VC funded apps, et cetera. They come in, so we're getting some more quality at the other end. yeah, that's really, the market's really matured. That's changed in terms of what's on the app store.
The Priority Lane: So basically being a fringe type market or technology to becoming mainstream and more sophisticated.
Andrew: Yeah, it's all mainstream. Correct. And you've got big players in the space that are building games now. You're not really in a position where, and you've got technology that enables that, that got built. So the Unity components expand and evolve to become mobile. So all these things have been built to support enabling us to build better quality applications. So you get other providers to the market to...
Andrew: Through the quality of the airport, just because it's mainstream and there's obviously commercial opportunity and benefit for everyone involved.
The Priority Lane: So let's talk about the projects that you work on that come across your desk. What's the main driver for these apps by their proponents? Is it to improve business process or value add to their clients or a marketing initiative or something else or a mix of all the above?
Andrew: All the above, I'd say. In the end, I'd break it down to in business, we're looking to either save time or make more money. And it's generally any technology should be supporting that initiative. It is a business outcome that we're looking to drive always. And it's, yes, it's generally a marketing front end. How do we make more money? It can be a new product stream or revenue stream or a cost saving measure in terms of operations or efficiency gains.
Andrew: So it can be a mixture of all the above as well within applications. So it just really varies on what your business goal and objective is. Some technology is the business. So we've got apps that are effectively just the business and the sole source of revenue. So that whole application supports the business model and it runs the entirety of the business model where others are supporting an operation.
Andrew: Some for bricks and mortar type service based businesses that help in operation. Good example of that one would be a group that we work with is an expanding franchise business called MyHome. We've built an end to end platform that supports the operation from bookings, client communications, invoicing, and all the way through to supporting the cleaners that go out to residential homes, where to go, what to do next. So.
Andrew: That's more of an operational efficiency gain where others are just into an apps, which for example, a good one is Locomate in pharmacy that we've developed, which is a mobile app, sits on the app store, similar to Uber, but for pharmacy, which is effectively a solution where I need a temporary pharmacist today, tomorrow, someone's sick, someone's going on holidays, put a shift up. We've been known to fill it within a minute.
Andrew: Given the size and scale of the locum networks about 200,000, sorry, two and a half thousand locums across Australia now use the platform and all most of the big brands going overseas into the US and impacting other markets. So the product is the sole delivery of the business model in that instance, or the product supports an operation. So just really varied in terms of the type of work we do.
The Priority Lane: Okay, okay. So when a client comes to you, now this relates back to a point you touched on earlier. A client comes to you that they have ideas, dreams and concepts of what they want and what they need, but this has to be translated into technical specifications and brought into the world of reality. So I think you mentioned the DevReady program is the way you see through this to figure out what's real, what's not and how to do this.
Andrew: Yes.
Andrew: Yeah, so they've already came about, like I said, 10, 11 years ago when we had that SLL challenge within a project. That was a challenge, the software got delivered, but it's more that it didn't hit the ground running and got limited traction. So it was more, okay, how do we support to not over engineer? Because we can over engineer a product quite effectively. Scope can keep expanding. How do we keep it to a minimum? There's no guarantees in anything, but it's just how do we say,
The Priority Lane: You
Andrew: Because we can build a million dollar product or we can build a hundred thousand dollar product, which is the starting point of a solution. So how to, DevReady is all about just sifting through de-risking approach to project in terms of scope. That's critical. Scope in my mind is one of the biggest issues in software. They can expand and evolve, especially too much in the early MVP before it hits or users see it. The quicker we can get it in front of users, the better we are in terms of feedback.
Andrew: Evolution of products. They're from DevReady. It's all about getting clarity between key stakeholders in terms of what will work or what can work and then how do we translate that so developers can pick it up and actually implement it. There can be a gap between business and technology and DevReady is the bridge to divide that gap really and can close that communication barrier down to
Andrew: We can visualize the app, we can click through it, we can see it. So business stakeholders can understand and actually view what's coming and give feedback on that. And then we can document our features and functions which turn into actual specific tasks in terms of how we develop it for development team, QA, et cetera. So it is a bridge between business and technology. And that's how we see it and continue to evolve it over time.
The Priority Lane: Right, okay, so it takes the dreams and puts them into some kind of reality of what they can expect.
Andrew: Yeah, it's clearing out the expectations. It's a good, that's a good route. I'll just tell how we describe it. So yes, it's what are the expectations from all parties and what are we actually going to visualize at the end of this and not really open up the curtain at the end of the project and say, here you go, Nigel, here's your product. And you say, that is not what I expected. And that's a lot of what technology can be. yeah. So it's really, how do we just make it clear as much as we can.
The Priority Lane: Thank you.
The Priority Lane: Yeah.
Andrew: In the early days before anyone starts writing code.
The Priority Lane: Okay, and if you had a choice, say between two projects, okay, one had the potential to deliver 20% more profit, but the other project provided more of a challenge in the ability to spread your creative and technical wings, which one would you choose?
Andrew: For me personally, it's always going to be the creative, innovative angle. but others in the business is different. So if you speak to Anthony, my co-founder, he's, he doesn't play in that world as much. he prefers that, yeah, be able to pull it apart and optimize it, automate. So as a business, we track across both because you need to, the creative spreading wings. we do quite a bit of that in the world of startup, scale up offerings.
Andrew: We find that mid-tier markets are generally in the other bracket. for me, projects I'm more involved in and consulting and product manage are more the bigger opportunities where we see innovation and creativity. And others in the business just love the improving and efficiency. So just really varies depending on personality.
The Priority Lane: Okay, Andrew, now we're talking about the creative versus technical aspect of what you do. So I believe you said you had about 50 people at Aerion at the moment. So what do you balance that between getting the right balance of creative and technical? like, and who would be your ideal employee? What do you look like? What do you look at?
Andrew: Yeah we do.
Andrew: Yeah, so it depends on role, right? So in a product management setting, it's the need creativity, you need innovation and thinking. You know, a project management role, you need to be able to ensure that we're managing and tracking outcomes and probably a bit more specific. There's actually a tool that I've used quite a bit in the past, which is called wealth dynamics, talent dynamics, in terms of understanding.
Andrew: The type of people we're bringing into an organization. I found that really good. gives you bit of understanding really where people see it. for example, I sit more in that create a star where I would basically be more creative and have a conversation, easy flow. Anthony sits more on a mechanical lens, which means he's really good at process and defining process. We have Newton who runs our team in
Andrew: Nepal who sits in a supporting aspect. Really great for managing people, connecting, but don't give him a bunch of tasks to do because he will drop all of them. So everyone's a little bit different. There's in technology in that framework, we've got some people in DevOps and managing a lot of really heavy lifting stuff and people like that are really lords. They don't build process, but they'll follow it to the nth degree. Really good.
Andrew: For people to look at. So talent dynamics, wealth dynamics, we use the across the business quite a bit and depending on the type of role we would utilize that to who we're attracting really.
The Priority Lane: Okay, so that was talent dynamics, wealth dynamics. Was that correct?
Andrew: Yeah, there's a bit of a mixture. So the wealth dynamics is more focused on business owners, founders, people and leadership. Talent goes more to people across the business. So definitely something that I find really good value out of.
The Priority Lane: Okay, okay, great. Now, we spoke about AI earlier on. I've actually gone to AI and asked it, what is the one question I should ask you? So I've got a good information about this. Okay. So here it is. What's the most unexpected leadership lesson you've learned while scaling Aerion and how has it changed the way you lead today?
Andrew: Fascinating. I like to hear what I always got to say.
Andrew: OK, unexpected leadership lesson. I think you're always getting lessons across leadership and how we manage. What I've realized is a small business is easy to manage. We started off with a group of 10 people. There was a bit less at the time, actually. We started five or six in a little office and you could see whatever was doing and we could manage and understand where we're going. That moves to 10 to 15 in an office in Melbourne in Essendon. were effectively working at it for years.
Andrew: The advantage in that setting was still again, we're all hands on, we're all in a room. Come COVID, the business model shifted. We started an offshore model, so we now have an offshore team with 40 people offshore, 10 in Oz. I think the biggest leadership lesson as a business is growing is process, process and checks and balances must be in place. When you drop a check and a balance or a process,
Andrew: If there's a gap, that's when things blow up quite quickly. And we've seen that in projects where they go off the rails because these things have not been followed. Or there's not enough process to support growing teams. So the biggest lesson is, from my perspective, is plan processes ahead and structures ahead of growth. We've learned that over the journey that sets us up for better success and less problems because...
Andrew: Rarely is you always going to have a problem in business or a challenge that gets thrown at you or an unexpected thing or you'll have people, especially as business grows, that are trying to hide or maybe not producing the outcomes you'd expect. It's more about how quickly can you pick these up, how quickly can we actually understand problems and issues within a project. In a recent project we had over Christmas it sort of started and we had a challenge.
Andrew: The handover was pretty rough during the Christmas period. We got team off shore and it got off to a slow rough ride at the beginning because of that. Yeah, so the lesson learned and you learn lessons probably don't begin a project on the 16th of December when the cool people that they had a handover are probably starting to wrap up and get away. So we learned a lesson again and you're always learning lessons and there's no perfection. But I think from my perspective process systemize as much as you can and
The Priority Lane: Okay.
The Priority Lane: Yeah.
Andrew: And build tools and technology or utilize tools and technology to pick these things up quickly. That's probably my biggest lesson in growing a business.
The Priority Lane: Okay, okay, great. Well, Andrew, look, that's all for today. That's all I wanted to cover off. So look, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast and thank you very much for telling your story. It's been great.
Andrew: Yeah, thank you, Nigel. Appreciate you coming on. I'll have you come on. I said coming on because I'm used to hosting a podcast. If you're not, as I go check out the DevReady podcast. We've got about 270 plus episodes where I and Anthony hosts on our own, interviewing founders, people in business that are really building tech and the lessons learnt and it's a good give back to the community. So if anyone wants to check that out and also want to find more about us, just check us out at aerion.com.au. But thank you, Nigel. Appreciate the time.
The Priority Lane: You
Andrew: Thanks for having me on.
The Priority Lane: No problems and good luck with Aerion and with the podcast. We'll have the name of the podcast down here so people can go through and have a listen as well.
Andrew: Yeah, cheers Nigel. Thanks mate.
The Priority Lane: Okay, thank you. So that's it for today's episode of the Priority Lane. Make sure you tune in next week for the next edition. Thank you.