Development consultancy · Development approvals & consulting · Australia & New Zealand
The $180,000 hire he didn't make twice.
James runs a development consultancy securing sites, designs and approvals across Australia and New Zealand, the stage of construction nobody sees and everything depends on.
$150–180K
a year, the going rate for the in-house AI hire that didn't work
Fractional
the model that did: implemented from outside, on demand, like a good accountancy firm
3
verticals he tells every owner to audit first: finance, business development, managing the team
The company
Before a single thing gets built in Australia or New Zealand, someone has to pick the right site, prove the highest and best yield, and carry the designs and approvals through to lean contractor quotes. That is James's firm. It is paperwork with millions riding on it, and it made him an early buyer of AI, and an early victim of the standard way of buying it.
The mistake
He did what everyone in his industry is doing: hired the first technical person he found, put them in a chair, focused on what he does best and hoped. What followed was the gap every non-technical owner hits, hours spent hand-holding, work that came back not quite what he meant, systems and processes disturbed along the way. At Australian rates of $150,000 to $180,000 a year, a hire like that without a commercial lens costs more than the salary.
“You hire someone, put them in a chair, focus on what you do best and hope they're going to do the rest. That doesn't work.”
The model that works
His conclusion is the accountancy model. He doesn't employ a $200K accountant to sit in the business; he pays a credible firm to set things up and stay on a retainer. AI, he decided, works the same way: a fractional specialist who implements, carries the commercial understanding, and is on demand when needed, with the tech stack free to change underneath because the system is the outcome, not the tools.
“People are waiting on the fence for the final solution. It's never going to arrive. It's going to be constantly evolving.”
His advice to any owner starting out costs nothing: open the calendar, group the time into three or four verticals, and add up what the pain costs. Finance, business development, managing the team. The result, in his words, is eye-watering, and most of it can be automated.
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Development consultancy runs Imperium's AI Operating System. The $180,000 hire he didn't make twice. The numbers and quotes on this page come from the company's own filmed interview.