In 1968 he founded a small electronics retailer “Dick Smith Electronics. Twenty four years later he sold the business to Woolworths for $25 million, although the business still retained his name in the business title and his image as the company logo. Over the years, his electronics company had many hostile fights with Radio Shack which tried to push him out of the market. He fought back (once, by staging a demonstration outside their store) and often won by Australians supporting one of their own.

In 1983, he made the first solo helicopter flight around the world. During the trip he landed on container ships at sea to refuel. In 1985, he founded the magazine Australian Geographic, a National Geographic-style magazine focusing on Australia. Smith didn't want to greatly expand Australian Geographic, but his friend and CEO Ike Bain convinced him to change his mind and soon it was a thriving business.

Smith has also attempted a number of well-publicised practical jokes, the grandest of which was the "attempt" to tow an iceberg from Antarctica to Australia to obtain more fresh water. He won the 1986 Australian of the Year. He is a prominent member of the Australian Skeptics, and supported research into water divining.

Smith has been a vocal advocate for the civil aviation industry and served as Chairman of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority Board twice, 1990–1992 and 1997–1999.

Smith founded Dick Smith Foods (DSF) in 1999, marketed as a crusade against foreign ownership of Australian food producers, particularly Arnott's biscuits. DSF only sells foods produced in Australia by Australian-owned companies. Dick Smith products are often named to parody the items they compete with — for example, in competition with Redheads matches, Smith sells near-identically packaged matches called Dickheads. He also caused controversy by releasing a new chocolate biscuit called "Temtins" to compete directly with the established favourite Arnotts Tim Tams.^.

In 2004, Smith gave public support to the asylum seeker Peter Quasim, eventually released in 2005 by the Australian Government after 7 years in detainment. This support included a visit to Afghanistan seeking evidence of Quasim's claims.

His efforts in establishing and building small Businesses and fight against large multi national company’s eroding the Australian culture in food and business is recognised by COSBOA is this award as the Small Business Champion for 2006.

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