Poolwerx CEO Nic Brill spent a decade learning America isn’t one market, it’s fifty. Here’s what that cost, and what it taught them.
When Brisbane-founded Poolwerx crossed the Pacific in 2015, it didn’t treat the United States as a test run. A decade on, the pool and spa maintenance franchise operates across 17 states, backed by a purpose-built headquarters and technical training centre in Dallas, Texas.
That kind of commitment, according to Global CEO Nic Brill, is exactly the point. Many Australian businesses approach overseas expansion as a side project, dipping a toe in before deciding whether to commit. Poolwerx did the opposite, and its founder’s own account of the journey offers a useful, occasionally uncomfortable, reality check for other Australian business owners considering the same move.
America Isn’t One Market
The first lesson is the most basic, and the one Brill says catches founders out fastest: America is not a single country to plan for. It’s a patchwork of distinct regional economies, each with its own regulatory environment, consumer behaviour and competitive landscape.
In Australia, a founder can largely run one national playbook. Sydney, Brisbane and Perth behave similarly enough that strategy doesn’t need to shift much between them. That doesn’t hold in the US. Poolwerx’s leadership found that Sunbelt states like Texas and Arizona operate under completely different seasonal patterns, labour markets and commercial property realities than northern states, and treating them the same way is, in Brill’s words, a fast way to burn through capital.
Competition adds another layer of difficulty. Where an Australian business might compete against a handful of national players, US operators face heavily funded, private-equity-backed aggregators alongside thousands of regional businesses that have owned their local turf for generations.
“To stand out in the USA, your business model can’t just be a little bit better than what’s already out there,” Brill says. “It has to be undeniably scalable and structurally superior to anything the local market offers, and you have to be open to adjusting your model to be competitive. It may differ from region to region.”
Culture Doesn’t Translate Automatically
Australian founders are often praised for grit and a give-it-a-crack mentality. Useful traits at home, Brill suggests, but ones that can become liabilities in the US if founders assume everything else will translate just as easily, including language.
Marketing tone, sales pitches and workplace culture rarely transfer without adjustment. American consumers and business partners, Brill has found, expect a different level of overt enthusiasm and polish than what typically works in the Australian market.
“One of the biggest lessons is recognising that different markets have different business cultures,” Brill explains. “Australian and American teams can approach communication, decision-making and ways of working differently, and neither is right or wrong. The key is creating a unified culture that respects those differences while giving everyone a shared way of working.”
That extends to capital too. Brill is blunt that scaling in the US properly means investing in local legal compliance, real estate and regional marketing from day one, rather than easing in gradually.
“The first step isn’t simply investing capital, it’s investing the time to understand the market,” he says. “Every market has its own customer expectations, competitive landscape and ways of doing business. Success comes from adapting your business model to those realities without compromising your brand, purpose or the principles that have driven your success.”
Why Local HQ Mattered
Perhaps the clearest decision Poolwerx made was refusing to manage the US expansion remotely. Founder John O’Brien put his own time and resources into building a presence on the ground, and the business eventually opened a 10,000-square-foot headquarters and technical training centre in Dallas.
That facility became the operational base for the entire US network, delivering hands-on training to meet US technical standards and giving franchise partners same-timezone support. It also let Poolwerx hire local executive talent who understood regional legal and marketing nuances firsthand.
“You cannot expect American franchise partners to buy into a vision if the leadership team is a 14-hour time difference away,” Brill says. “Establishing a physical, localised headquarters in Dallas showed the market that Poolwerx was entirely committed to the region.”
Lessons Flowing Back Home
The payoff hasn’t been one-directional. Brill has since restructured Poolwerx into a single global business, moving away from running the US and Australian arms as separate operations.
“Our competitive advantage comes from thinking globally while supporting locally,” Brill says. “We’ve built a global team structure and shared services model that allows us to draw on knowledge from across our network to solve local challenges.”
Two changes stand out. The Dallas training centre, built to cope with high staff turnover and fast-paced operational demands, produced micro-learning modules and digital training tools that have since been rolled into Australian training, cutting the time it takes to get new technicians generating revenue. Separately, a shared services model now pools support staff across both countries, aiming for more consistent problem-solving and market insight for franchise partners on both sides of the Pacific.
Brill’s closing take is less about the US specifically and more a general note to founders weighing overseas expansion: the market rewards founders who commit fully and build real local infrastructure, rather than testing the waters from a distance.
Note: This piece is based on commentary and quotes provided by Poolwerx and its CEO, Nic Brill. Figures relating to store count, franchise territories and years of operation are drawn from the company’s own reporting.
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