Starting a small business takes guts. What will it cost you? What will you stand for when it’s tested? And who will keep it going when you can’t?
About 200 business professionals heard Revo Fitness Founder Andrew Holder, Dome Co-founder Patria Jafferies and adapt Co-founder and Leader Gabe Enslin take on those questions at CCIWA’s 2026 Small Business Summit on October 26.
Attendees also heard from Small Business Minister Hon Jackie Jarvis, CCIWA Chief Economist Dr Daniel Kiely and Small Business Development Commissioner Saj Abdoolakhan on the state of small business in WA.
What the early years ask of you
Alison Savage facilitates the panel session The Future of Small Business at Small Business Summit 2026, with panellists Saj Abdoolakhan, Andrew Holder and Dr Daniel Kiely.
In the early years of a small business, the owner is often the whole team.
“I was 21-year-old starting a business – it was no, after no, after no, after no,” he said.
He opened six locations in the first eight years without a marketing budget or franchising, and did the work himself.
“All of those little cogs that you build together, the marketing team – that was me. The HR team – that was also me. When I first started the business, there was just one of me,” Holder said.
For Jafferies, the cost was her nights. She baked Dome’s carrot cakes herself, from 10pm until 3am for the first five years, until the business had more than five outlets.
“I must have been crazy. But all business owners do something that’s a little bit different, and I have to say, it’s some of the greatest moments that I’ve ever had,” she said.
“Have fun doing it. Don’t pull yourself down in doing it. Make sure there’s some smiles and laughter and jokes about it.”
Know what you stand for, even when it costs you
When Revo’s six gyms were forced to close in March 2020 with no reopen date, they switched off every direct debit. It stopped Revo’s revenue overnight, but showed members the business had their backs.
Holder also left the lights on at every site, even as landlords questioned the electricity bill, so members knew Revo wasn’t going anywhere.
Andrew Holder, Founder of Revo Fitness, speaks during The Future of Small Business panel.
“Who was I in the biggest crisis I could ever face at that moment, to not be who I said I was going to be?” he said.
When the gyms reopened in June, memberships rose 20% in the first month. Landlords who had never called him started ringing. Holder used the opportunity to grow rather than hold with six locations, opening three in 2020 and doubling the business in 2021. Revo now has more than 80 locations nation-wide.
Holder said the years of groundwork made that possible.
“I understood what we stood for from a values perspective. I knew what our product was. I knew how to scout. I knew how to open gyms. I knew how to employ people and drive a really strong culture,” he said.
His advice was to look after the detail first, so you can recognise an opportunity when it arrives.
“Never let a crisis go to waste,” he said.
Build a business beyond yourself
Enslin summed up his advice to business owners in one line: “Build a business that you can leave, even if you never do.”
He learned the cost of being the entire business the hard way. After three and a half years of seven-day weeks running a Tasmanian shuttle service, he sold up with virtually nothing to show for it.
“Because I was it, there wasn’t really much for a buyer to take,” he said.
According to adapt’s data, about eight in 10 owners said the business runs through them, and only one in three have never taken a full week off since starting.
The cost shows up at sale time too, as Enslin said owners who are too central “leave nearly half of the money on the table”.
He shared the example of a Victorian heating and cooling business owner who was burnt out and about to sell for well under two times their earnings. Instead, the owner spent about two-and-a-half years building a team that could make decisions without him, and sold for six times earnings. The difference was evidence. A buyer could see how the business operated, who held which roles and how well people other than the owner were leading it.
Dome Coffees Australia co-founder Patria Jafferies delivers the keynote address at Small Business Summit 2026.
Jafferies did the same at Dome. The business grew quickly without back-of-house systems so she brought in people with the expertise she lacked.
“I wanted them to be smarter than I was, so they could take my job,” she said.
Dome was later sold through a management buyout and is still running successfully.
“It’s very different than it was when we had it, but it’s still good … and it makes you proud,” she said.
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