About Nathan

I built SoloOp on the toilet. Genuinely.

I grew up in Tasmania. Worked hospitality for years — bars, restaurants, the kind of work where you're on your feet all day managing other people's problems for someone else's profit. Then real estate. Same thing, different shoes.

Eventually I got sick of it. Sick of the hours, sick of the politics, sick of building someone else's business while mine stood still. So I moved to Cairns, bought a mower, and started That Yard Care Guy.

Best decision I ever made. Worst admin experience of my life.

Here's what nobody tells you.

You don't just mow lawns. You mow lawns, and then you come home and pay to have done it.

Fuel to run the equipment. Registration for the trailer. Insurance on everything. Water and electricity at home. Tax — often as much as the rent. Every single week, before you earned a cent, money was already leaving.

I felt like I was being waterboarded financially every morning.

And then — after a full day on the tools in 35-degree Cairns heat — I'd sit down at night and spend another hour sending invoices, chasing payments, updating a calendar, texting bank details to clients who may or may not pay by Friday.

I was paying for the privilege of working late.

Three kids — 1, 4, and 6. My wife trying to get the older two ready for school in the background. Chaos. Always chaos.

I'd think: I just want to mow lawns.

So I went looking.

One night I was sitting there — kids finally asleep, house quiet — scrolling Facebook. Someone in a group was complaining about their scheduling software. Someone else mentioned Jobber. Someone else said ServiceM8 capped their free plan at 30 jobs a month.

I do 30 jobs in a week.

I went looking for something better. Free, actually built for sole operators, handles invoicing and payments and scheduling without a monthly fee that eats into already-thin margins.

It didn't exist.

So I built it.

Not a developer. A lawn mower with a laptop.

I'm not a developer by trade. I'm a lawn mower who got fed up and picked up a laptop. I've spent the last year building SoloOp while still running That Yard Care Guy — mowing during the day, building at night, testing every feature on real jobs with real clients.

Every single thing in this app exists because I needed it. Not because a product team thought it sounded good in a meeting. Because I was standing on a driveway at 5pm thinking there has to be a faster way to do this.

Rain Mode exists because Cairns gets 300mm overnight and your whole week falls apart.

Gravity Scheduling exists because I was sick of inefficient routes eating my fuel budget.

AutoPay exists because I was sick of the "I'll transfer you tonight mate" that never came.

The client portal exists because I was sick of the "can you resend that invoice?" text.

The accountant portal exists because Tax time shouldn't require a separate subscription.

It's free because I know what $50/month feels like when margins are tight.

Built in the field. Used in the field.

I still mow lawns. Every week. I use SoloOp on every job.

When I tell you it works in the field — I mean the actual field. In the heat. With no signal behind a Colorbond fence. With three missed calls from clients while the mower's running.

That's what it was built for. That's who it was built by.

Nathan Du Vergier

Founder, SoloOp

Lawn care operator, That Yard Care Guy

Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Still mowing. Still building.

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