Persistence pays off: Outside Ideas’ Melbourne gamble
Adelaide company Outside Ideas has turned a risky interstate expansion into success, earning their share of Melbourne’s biggest projects and pushing year-on-year revenue from $90 million to $125 million.
Adelaide-based commercial landscaping and civil construction company Outside Ideas was looking to expand into Victoria in 2019 when it purchased Landscape Plus.
“It was probably the worst time ever to buy a business in Melbourne,” said Outside Ideas founder and director Aaron Superina.
“I had six months of being able to work in that business… but, obviously, during [Melbourne’s extensive lockdowns of] 2020 and 2021, that was interrupted quite a lot.”
Back in Adelaide, Outside Ideas was also facing a challenging period.
The company had a strong track record but it was hard to win enough work as fewer projects were going out for tender at the time.
“We just needed the market to change, and for us, that probably came with Festival Plaza,” Superina said.
Outside Ideas won $36 million of contracts across three stages with Walker Corporation, Hansen Yuncken and the state government for the landscaping of Festival Plaza.
“That was probably one of the big turning points for us in Adelaide – then from there, there were a lot more projects and it became easier [for us] to win work.”
Adelaide’s Festival Plaza
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Current projects include stage one of the Jetty Road, Glenelg upgrade, the Yitpi Yartapuultiku Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Port Adelaide and the Gather Round facility at Lyndoch.
“Our business is structured in a way where we do three things: we do the commercial landscaping; we also do civil, so that’s earthworks, building a road, a car park; and we also do structural concreting,” Superina said.
“The key for us [in winning tenders] is finding where we can win multiple packages for one client.”
Last year, the company leapt up InDaily‘s South Australian Business Index rankings.
Superina, who was named First Among Equals in the InDaily 40 Under 40 Awards in 2019, said throwing in the towel when business got tough was never an option.
“We had so many good years of Outside Ideas in Adelaide… and you think you’re going okay and feel confident about your ability to run a business – then you go through a hard time.
“You have a moment of doubt and wonder whether you can actually do this, but you have no choice, you can’t pull out.
“In 2021, I probably worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life.”
Winning projects in the Melbourne market was made harder by the fact that while Landscape Plus had plenty of customers in the commercial building sector, they had not built up those key relationships to win repeat work.
“That’s something I didn’t quite appreciate at the time – that we were working for people who probably didn’t value us as much as we felt we deserved,” Superina said.
The situation changed after Landscape Plus tendered for and won the $19 million landscaping and public works contract for Arden Street Station, one of five new underground stations being built as part of the Melbourne Metro Tunnel project.
They have now delivered another five projects for John Holland as part of Victoria’s level crossing removal program.
Landscape Plus delivered the landscaping and civil works for Melbourne Quarter Collins Street for Lendlease
This financial year, Outside Ideas will achieve – and significantly exceed – their key milestone of $100 million in annual revenue, with $125 million in sales.
For the last three years, they had been “frustratingly” hovering somewhere above $90 million.
Their workforce has also doubled since 2019 and now numbers more than 250 across the two states, including 32 apprentices.
“The amount of infrastructure and building work that happens in Melbourne is just hard to get your head around,” Superina said.
In 2023, board member George Roussos, who has decades of experience in the construction industry, moved across to become the company’s general manager.
Superina credits him as being an “excellent mentor” to all members of their team, helping them to progress their careers, as well as playing a big part in the company’s growth.
“We don’t go for jobs that we think we can have a crack at; we go for jobs that we think that we can do better than anybody else, and we really double down on that.”
Estimating project costs and timings is notoriously tricky in the industry, with typically more than 1000 line items to a job.
“If we’ve over allowed for something, then that’s actually not a great thing as maybe we could lose projects because of it,” Superina said.
Unusually, they have chosen to make it a joint effort by the estimator and the project team.
“The more people who can look at it, review it and challenge each other on the methodology or how quickly something can be built, the less chance there is of making an error.
“We’re always pushing ourselves to build in a better way that will hopefully get a better outcome for our client, and in turn, make it more likely that we win the job.
“Once we do win it, the project team knows every single square inch of that project and they’re ready to go.”
They are currently working on a tender for Melbourne’s suburban rail loop and, with other major infrastructure projects also coming online in the next decade, Superina sees Landscape Plus as offering the biggest opportunity for growth.
“We’re probably regarded as the equal biggest landscaper in Melbourne already, and there’s an opportunity to be maybe three times the size while just doing commercial landscaping.
“We’re still very small in Melbourne compared to what we could be – and the opportunity for us to grow over there is really exciting.”
The 40 Under 40 Awards program helps to bring attention to a new, younger generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders in the state. Applications for the 2025 awards close on Monday, 17 March.
