Taking lessons from the big end of town and adapting them to a residential setting has been a key driver behind the success of the team at South Australia’s Crew Built. Founder and managing director Kieran Flanigan comes from a background in large commercial builds and says that the lessons he learned there have influenced how he operates now.
Flanigan and his co-founder Alex Warner met when they were both site managers at a large commercial building operation before deciding to set up their own smaller building company, with a plan to specialise in custom residential projects.
“I was previously a commercial construction site manager and a tradie (carpenter, joiner, plumber and gasfitter) before that as well,” Flanigan explains, adding that these are all transferable skills to their own business. “We have taken the commercial principles that matter and then implemented them into a residential building company.”
Because, as he says, while the scale of the projects is different, many things remain the same.
“When I was at those companies, I used to sit in the pockets of the estimators, project managers and construction advisers to get a holistic approach on how they did their job and what that job title entailed,” he recalls.
“When I went out on my own, I had a pretty good understanding of estimating, costing and tender proposals and job tracking.”
Flanigan says he has always wanted to run his own business and loves the autonomy and freedom it brings. “It was always a destination I wanted to get to once I had enough experience and felt comfortable to do so. I just needed a good foundation of how to build and how to cost and how to be a good tradesman first, and then do a diverse range of projects. Once I did all that, I felt comfortable to go on this journey.”
This diversity of projects is what drives him. “It’s good to get to pick and choose what projects we get to do and how we build them,” he says. “We have control over the clientele that we work with, consultants we work with, and what we choose to build, which makes it a lot more fulfilling.
“I like the diverse range of projects we do. They’re all genuinely different with their own complexities. We just like solving those issues in different ways and having a portfolio to show that as well. It’s about being able to build what gets us out of bed and what excites us.”
Crew Built has a small team of three—Flanigan, Alex Warner and James Fallon, along with a group of regular subcontractors.
“There’s only three of us,” he says. “We’re a really small firm so we control the projects ourselves. So, I run two or three projects simultaneously and Alex will do the same, and so will James.”
They focus on custom builds, working with local architects and designers. “We construct individually tailored custom-built homes,” says Flanigan.
“Depending on the client budget and their taste, we introduce them to a small pool of architects and interior designers that would best suit their design brief. And then they do the drawings in conjunction with us advising on cost and the design.
“And then from there we all agree on a final design and move to construction.” Being involved from an early stage allows Crew Built to provide value engineering at the right time, which leads to good cost management.
“It’s not just the bottom line,” Flanigan adds. “I mean, that’s always important but it’s also about being outcome focused. Delivering amazing sorts of products and services is more what we’re about.”
Founded in 2021, the company has already won a swag of awards, including last year’s HIA Australian Start-up Business Award & HIA South Australia Emerging Builder of the Year Award.
These awards are new categories of the HIA awards program, and for brand new businesses in early development stages that have only traded between 18 months and five years at the close of entry date.
As an HIA national judge noted, Crew Built’s robust systems, operational management and positive customer feedback put them in the lead.
In the 2024 HIA South Australian Housing and Kitchen & Bathroom Awards, Crew Built also won the Australian Apartment of the Year, and multiple awards for Australian Renovation/Addition projects. Flanigan says that winning awards, especially as a new company, has made a difference to them as a business and given them more credibility.
“I think it just shows your future clients and people in the industry how much you care and your attention to detail. It’s recognised on a bigger scale that we’re a safe set of hands and we enjoy what we do.”
