I met Luke Anear, Founder of SafetyCulture, last year at the OzApp Awards (which they took out first prize), and recently chatted to him about where SafetyCulture IAuditor is heading.
\\SN: How would you describe SafetyCulture IAuditor in under 100 words?
iAuditor is the most popular safety and quality inspection app in the world. Used more than 50,000 times per day, iAuditor’s customisable, smart checklists empower workers to conduct onsite inspections, identify hazards and share reports in real-time.
The app transforms a typically paper based industry to a digital based one, where individuals can do 8 times the amount of inspections they used to. Checklists are created with drag and drop editing interface or can be downloaded through our free public library. SafetyCulture’s web-based analytics platform centrally manages and analyses data captured through iAuditor to uncover insights and workplace trends.
\\SN: What was the motivation to create SafetyCulture IAuditor?
Paper checklists are dumb. They essentially offer no visibility over your operations. Companies are in reactive mode using this outdated method. Typically the industry waits for something to happen, and a new legislation in brought in.
After noticing the use of smartphones in everyday life, I wanted to develop a solution for safety in the workplace to help prevent incidents before they occur.
\\SN: What has been your biggest challenge building SafetyCulture IAuditor, so far?
SafetyCulture iAuditor ensures field workers are empowered to build safety and quality within their workplace. Therefore the mobile first experience has to be designed for construction workers, miners and those who are not tech savvy and are not desk based.
At SafetyCulture we are continually trying to simplify and streamline the field worker experience, whilst making the app as “smart” as possible. Developing a simple, yet smart application is one of our greatest challenges.
\\SN: Who is your ideal customer? Are you able to describe them for us?
Initially, we thought we were helping customers who were looking to digitize a checklist or inspection form. However, we actually providing real time visibility on our customers’ operations from the fieldworker up through to the manager. We give insights to allow fieldworkers and managers to drive change for a safer workplace.
\\SN: What are you most excited about at the moment?
To date the growth of SafetyCulture iAuditor can solely be attributed to our customers finding the product through the app stores. So far we have done limited marketing globally so most of the world doesn’t know who we are and what we do.
We raised AU$30 million in funding late last year, and this gives us the opportunity to get SafetyCulture iAuditor out there to millions of field workers and empower them to drive change. We are most excited about the impact iAuditor can have in the workplace to allow more workers to go home safely each night.
\\SN: What are your thoughts on the Australian software ecosystem at the moment?
I am excited to be part of the Australian tech ecosystem. Scott Farquhar, the CEO and cofounder of Atlassian is an investor and adviser to SafetyCulture and the success of Atlassian has attracted more global talent to Australia. However, hiring talent in Australia still isn’t an easy task and we support the need for changes (for example to taxation and visas) to make Australia one of the leading global hubs for tech talent.
\\SN: Where do you see SafetyCulture IAuditor in 2 years’ time?
SafetyCulture iAuditor is already used by over half of the top ASX listed companies – some with a few free users and others with over a thousand users. Our recent Series B funding allows us to better support our customer and expand significantly in our core markets of Australia and New Zealand, North America and the United Kingdom.
In two years’ time we hope our products are used by many more global companies with teams in the field to provide real time visibility on what’s working well, what isn’t working well and what to do about it.
\\SN: Why should our readers start using SafetyCulture IAuditor?
SafetyCulture changes the way you inspect and audit, giving you more visibility than ever before. Good companies are safe companies and iAuditor is on a mission to raise the tide of safety across all industries and workplaces.
If you want to understand what’s working well and what’s not working in real-time, than iAuditor is the product for you.
//SN: Thank you so much for your insights, Luke, and all the best with your growth.
This article is one of a series of interviews where I speak with the founders of Australian SaaS (Software as a Service) companies. You can view the other interviews here.
