TECH SHAKE-UP FOR 'OLD SCHOOL' TOWING

A POLICE tender isn't typically a place where business begins.

Dominic Holland, the 2015 Brisbane Young Entrepreneur Retail & Services winner, doesn't approach business in a typical way though.

Holland began his latest business venture, Tow.com.au, just last year and is already recording multimillion-dollar revenues.

The day the business began trading, July 1, was the day Holland began a state-wide contract with Queensland Police Service.

"I knew nothing about towing," Holland admits.

"My passion is using technology to shake up industry and this is one of the most old school industries that has never really undergone big changes."

Tow.com.au has a fully-automated dispatch system, so you can now book with Tow almost anywhere in the country and the system will automatically dispatch its closest truck.

"We don't have any intervention in-between, which means we can scale really easily as we have done," says Holland.

"We are already in every state and territory, which wouldn't be possible without that technology.

"I think it's still the only system of its kind in the country."

In the footsteps of the world's biggest companies, Holland follows the model that, regardless of industry, you must be in the business of technology. He also approaches business from a needs-based perspective. 

Tow.com.au's staff comprises software developers, debt collectors and drivers, but most of the time the cars are towed in by sub-contractors.

Holland says most of the staff are business and systems related, and there are generally 12 employees on the phone at any one time.

At the time of interview, Holland's staff had ballooned from 25 to 33, and he had another two staff starting the following day.

"Within the space of less than two months, we have met our 12-month hiring forecast," he says.

In regards to Holland's atypical approach to business, he may be a techie, but he shuns the idea that Silicon Valley is 'all that'.

He is only 28 years old, but has already lived in Palo Alto for some time and worked on a couple of startups to 'varying-mild success', scoring a few software patents along the way.

His media network Dom's Network led him to Silicon Valley in the first place, which in 2007 was pre-Facebook take-off.

"The idea behind the media network wasn't so much about creating a social network that just had better features than Facebook, but creating a network built for advertisers with better psychological profiling to build in a really convincing advertising system that wasn't just noise or unseen," says Holland.

"I think I went over there because that's what you do when you have a passion for technology - but I actually didn't like it there to be honest. Their business culture and their way of operating, I didn't agree with it.

"I think I come from a more commercial background."