Thomas Wilson
What is your startup?
We are working on the prototyping and development of the Post Hole Mate! The Post Hole Mate is essentially a shovel that allows Tradies, or any handy person, to quickly and easily clear and compact footing or post holes. These foundation holes need to be deep and existing tools for clearing them of material are either expensive (like hiring mobile equipment) or insufficient. We have secured the patents and done a heap of work in the development and design stages. We’d love to see the product being sold in hardware stores around Australia in the next 12 -18 months.
What was the inspiration behind your startup?
One of our cofounders (Damien King – Damo) was the inspiration. Damo is a builder and was grappling with the issues of clearing footing holes for house foundations. Real-time challenge lead to the initial design for the Post Hole Mate. He also found that using the tool he could dramatically reduce the time spent on the job (saving up to 10 hours in some cases!), produce better results (clean and more stable holes) and complete the task far more ergonomically. Incorporating a flat bottom/base in the shovel design also allowed the sediment to be easily compacted at the bottom of the hole in preparation for inspections by foundation hole regulators and the next step of concreting in the posts.
Josh Hawes
What are your goals for the next month?
Over the next month we aim to fully develop a website and then launch the Post HoleMate on a crowd funding site to encourage financial support and increase consumerawareness.
Where do you expect your startup to be in 3 months time?
We would like to have 10 prototypes made and distributed to relevant tradies and handy people for trial and feedback. We also aim to have an understanding of the costs and requirements associated with taking the design to mass production
