Having been in the industry for so long, Whyte has seen massive changes.
“Forty years ago, what we were doing then is what we are still doing now, but now it is more sophisticated,” he says.
“When we started there was nothing like what we were doing, so the early years were fairly easy as we were by ourselves.”
Whyte says “for about the first 10 years” of Aero Design’s operation, there was no real competition.
“We were making metal furniture when most of the furniture was pine,” he says.
In its early years, Whyte says Aero Design was able to weather the ups and down of the economy more easily.
“Being small, bumps in the economy didn’t affect us,” he says.
“Because we had a passion for it, and it was a niche type business, it was okay. In the last 15 years competition has really come in and we’ve had to be more proactive.”
There are no long lunches for Whyte.
“I generally just have a sandwich for lunch, I very rarely go out,” he says.
His afternoons are generally spent “talking to people who can help us”, “taking drawings to people to work out costings for them” or “maybe just working on packaging”.
“Because we make so many products, it is all about how they are packaged and presented, and for a small company it requires a lot of liaison and time,” Whyte says.
Whyte usually finishes up work at around 6pm and goes home.
“Although I think about work when I go home I try not to do any more work,” he says. “I might watch a bit of television or read a book. Sometimes I’ll have dinner with friends.”
The move to a large warehouse showroom in Hawthorn East is a big one for Aero Design and Whyte is hoping it pays off.
“Retail as we know it is finished,” he says. “The internet has changed the face of it.”
“We have completely changed tack and gone off the main high street to virtually a warehouse location in order to firstly lower the rent quite substantially and so that it is visually different,” he says.
Customers can park easily and then enter through a deck and garden to a large showroom area.
“It’s a very different experience and for us that is what needs to happen,” he says.
“This has really got to work for us as turnover is right down at the moment.”
Whyte says he doesn’t have a succession plan, other than that his daughters will take it over.
“If they can make this work then they have to take it over and run it themselves,” he says.
“We had a good offer to buy it quite a few years ago and my daughters said to me, ‘We don’t want you to sell the business’. I thought, then let’s keep it and that’s what we did.”
Cara Waters is a former SmartCompany editor. Previously, Cara was a senior reporter for the Financial Times’ website and worked for The Sunday Times in London.
