{"id":3631,"date":"2013-11-22T01:36:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T15:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/sidekicker-interview\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T00:31:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T14:31:20","slug":"sidekicker-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/sidekicker-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Web Entrepreneur & Sidekicker Founder Tom Amos on Startups, Ideas, and Finding Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tom<\/a><\/p>\n

“Very few ideas are new,” says Tom Amos, Founder of Melbourne-based Sidekicker.com.au<\/a> when I ask him how, exactly, he got the idea for his fledgling but successful startup business.<\/p>\n

“I think there’s way too much of a focus [in the startup space] on creating something totally new that’s not being done anywhere else in the world. What’s the saying? ‘There’s nothing new under the sun.'”<\/p>\n

Of his own business, he says simply, “We saw an existing market, and we wanted to improve on that.”<\/p>\n

But it turns out the factors that let Tom spot that opportunity are pretty complex.<\/p>\n

Sidekicker is an online marketplace that connects small to medium businesses (SMBs) looking to increase their project skills or capacity with quality temporary talent\u2013the “sidekicks”.<\/p>\n

It was a combination of personal experience, professional experience, industry knowledge, and passion that let Tom perceive that opportunity.<\/p>\n

Personal and professional experience<\/h2>\n

Tom initially saw the opportunity for his business in his own life.<\/p>\n

Back in 2010, while he was working at consulting firm Deloitte, he was also studying and playing golf for his local club. Tom didn’t have a lot of spare time, and says he relied a lot on his mum to help him out with errands. But, he says, “I kept thinking, ‘I’d pay someone to do this for me.'”<\/p>\n

TaskRabbit had just started operating, so Tom knew there was a business model around that idea of personal help.<\/p>\n

But it wasn’t until Tom was working on Sidekicker that he and co-founder Jackie realized that the bigger need was within small businesses, rather than the individual market.<\/p>\n

For now, that moment was a long way off.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Tom was working with SMBs through his role at Deloitte and knew how stretched they were. His first-hand professional experience told him there was a problem with the existing temp-agency model in the SMB niche.<\/p>\n

Industry knowledge<\/h2>\n

Did Tom research alternative models within the particular niche he was targeting?<\/p>\n

Interestingly, when he talks about temping agencies, he mentions that his understanding of that space is limited. For him, the hands-on experience he gained when working with SMBs\u2013and as a gun-for-hire himself in the world of consulting\u2013gave him the insight he needed.<\/p>\n

He knew how much SMBs disliked temping agencies, and began pondering ways to improve on that model.<\/p>\n

“Business owners are time poor. We’re dealing with people who have got projects or event[s] and they just need to scale up quickly. They don’t want to be looking through applications. They want to be connected with someone at a reasonable price and without a lot of hassle.”<\/p>\n

For Tom, this was more food for thought.<\/p>\n

Passion<\/h2>\n

Passion was another key factor in his ability to perceive the opportunity to create Sidekicker.<\/p>\n

“One of the things I like is people being empowered and taking control in what they want to do”, Tom says, rather than being told what to do by a placement person or overseer.<\/p>\n

This view steered him away from, for example, creating a better temping agency that could outcompete others in the same market. It encouraged him to consider a technical, crowdsourced solution instead.<\/p>\n

“Our view is that through technology we can connect the two people that are important: the person posting the job, and the person doing the job,” Tom explains. “There’s no need to have someone else there as a roadblock. Our technology takes care of a lot of those things.”<\/p>\n

That passion, he says, is “what keeps you going on the shit days.” Seeing his business make a real difference for others\u2013whether they’re sidekicks or hiring businesses\u2013is immensely satisfying and inspiring for Tom and his team.<\/p>\n

The final push<\/h2>\n

With these ideas swirling through his mind, many of the dots still remained unconnected. What was it that prompted Tom to give his “crazy startup idea” a go?<\/p>\n

It was time spent working in Wellington, New Zealand with a friend who’d started his own beer company. “If he can do it,” thought Tom, “I can do it.”<\/p>\n

So when he came back to Melbourne, he started talking to people. “I just kept getting myself in deeper and deeper,” he says, “so that I had no choice but to do it.”<\/p>\n

Finally, he decided to take a year off work, to focus on Sidekicker and really give it a go.<\/p>\n

More opportunities<\/h2>\n

Tom’s startup idea wasn’t completely new: it was already gaining traction in a different niche, as TaskRabbit.<\/p>\n

And as Tom worked on the business, bringing in co-founder Jackie and digital agency Loud and Clear, the idea evolved into the SMB-targeted service you see today.<\/p>\n

“All ideas start with one thing,” Tom says, “but they lead off into something else as you realize new opportunities.”<\/p>\n

Tom is always looking for business opportunities to enhance Sidekicker’s offering. Right now, he’s working on an idea to partner with a training organization to upskill and train the Sidekicker applicants who don’t make the cut.<\/p>\n

This opportunity arose from a connection that Tom made months earlier at an industry event with the owner of a training business coupled with data from his own business on applicant rejections.<\/p>\n

For Tom, it seems, opportunities are everywhere. So his advice to new and would-be founders is straightforward.<\/p>\n

“When you’re starting something new, you can’t hold onto your idea too tightly. Yes, you’ve got to have passion, you’ve got to have a clear vision for where you want to get to, but you also need to be adaptable,” he says.<\/p>\n

“If opportunities pop up where you can do something that’s a little more profitable, or it’s going to change people’s lives more, then you’ve got to grab that.”<\/p>\n

Recommended reading<\/h2>\n

Looking for more hands-on interviews with entrepreneurs in the internet industry? Check out these articles:<\/p>\n