We recently caught up with Tom Egan, founder of Avia Homes. If you haven’t listened to the podcast with Tom yet, head over to Spotify and check it out.

In less than three years, Tom took Avia from an idea to a $100 million construction company. How? He did it by backing himself early, building solid systems, and setting the business up like it was already built for scale.

When the construction industry was falling apart during COVID, most people were putting on the brakes. Tom was doing the opposite. After the company he worked for collapsed, he decided he wasn’t going to put on anyone else’s shirt again. No fallback plan. Just a clear head, a handful of loyal staff, and a promise he made to himself.

“If I could build a company in the worst time ever… could you imagine in a couple of years?”

Before making the first sales, he spent months behind the scenes, building the backend. Systems, processes, workflows. Every step, he kept asking himself, can this scale? Will this still work when we’re five times bigger? It wasn’t about pumping up numbers or putting on a show. It was about laying a proper slab under the business before worrying about the windows and paint.

“You can be doing a lot, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting a lot done,” he said.

“You can have four staff, or you can have one, and if your systems and workflows are right, that one person can outperform the four.”

While plenty of builders wait until the wheels start falling off to put more people on, Tom stayed well ahead of it. He didn’t wait until the pressure was unbearable. He hired based on forecasts, not feelings, and he kept expanding the team before the business burst at the seams.

“If you wait for the pain point, you’re already too late,” he said.

“You have to stick to your plan even when it feels uncomfortable.”

That sort of discipline ran deeper than hiring. It shaped how Tom ran himself. A lot of people reckon business growth is all about finding the right people. Tom reckons that’s only half of it. The other half is how you show up for yourself when no one’s watching.

“I had to show up for myself before I could show up for anyone else.” 

“The biggest limiter wasn’t the market. It was how I managed my own mindset every day.”

He didn’t sugarcoat the pressure. Some weeks he thought the whole thing might fold.

“There were definitely dead ends,” Tom said.

“I’d think, this is the one that’s going to save us. Then it’d fall over. You’ve just got to keep moving. Keep finding the next door.”

When things got hard, Tom didn’t blame the market, the banks, or the weather. He looked in the mirror.

“How the business is going, I take a good look at myself. That explains last month.”

The discipline wasn’t just mental either. Tom knew he couldn’t run a business if he was running himself into the ground. He cleaned up what he ate, what he listened to, what he let into his headspace.

“Managing myself was the biggest business strategy I never read in a book,” he said.

He was blunt about it. “When you stop putting ceilings on yourself, you realise anything’s possible. You either back yourself properly, or you don’t.” 

Starting a building company during COVID, while the industry was in full crisis mode, wasn’t exactly textbook advice. Funding was near impossible. Supply chains were cooked. Every second news story was about another builder going under. But Tom kept his head down. “What’s an extra hundred grand to lose, really?” he said. “I’d rather have a crack.”

He bet on himself. He bet on his team, and he bet on the systems he built when nobody was watching.

The proof’s in the numbers. Avia didn’t just survive. It grew. Fast. In its first full year, the business smashed through its target of 40 homes and delivered 110. Not by chance, and not by cutting corners, but by doing the boring, heavy lifting first, and setting up for success long before the market caught up.

Along the way, Avia picked up a reputation for something rarer than record growth. Reliability. Communication. Five-star reviews from clients who felt looked after, not left behind. Tom reckons that comes back to the early work.

“You don’t fix service by hiring another person,” he said.

“You fix service by making sure the people you already have are set up properly, supported properly, and trained properly.”

It’s easy to look at a story like this and think, yeah, but he must’ve just got lucky.

The truth’s simpler, and a bit tougher. He built the systems and the team before the sales. He backed himself before anyone else did. He managed himself like it mattered, because it did.

If you want to hear the full story, the wins, the setbacks, and the real lessons behind Avia’s rise, you can catch the full chat with Tom Egan now on Spotify.

Author: Jonathan Tibbits

Starting his career as a lawyer, Jonathan transitioned into project management, compliance, and certification for companies throughout the industry supply chain in Australia and New Zealand. With international experience in green building, sustainability and stakeholder communication, he is passionate about innovation and building transparency and trust.