Young Guns: hot shots hit their target

Imoda Group

Jay McAlister has always been pretty gutsy. Starting a building company only two weeks after finishing his apprenticeship as a carpenter wasn’t enough. He then jumped into founding an advertising agency, after 12 months in the industry. Now McAlister owns four businesses, each listed under IMODA Group. Although IMODA Group is only two years old, it has spread across a long list of industries, including: marketing, communications, advertising, property construction and development, project marketing printing, multimedia and branded content.

At 32, McAlister is reaping the benefits of a company that has grown more than 88 percent and needs 52 employees. How does he keep track? The companies are vertically integrated, so it’s not an impossible task. Nonetheless, it is a feat that makes him worthy of being shortlisted for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

While McAlister is currently consolidating to control this speedy growth, he has plans to launch a fifth business next year.

Psycare

Work-related stress conditions can seriously debilitate a business. Peter Stebbins and Danielle Lees co-founded PsyCare, after identifying the severe lack of support for employees in this area. The 33 and 29-year-old psychologists put their business skills alongside their skills of rehabilitation and treatment, and now successfully provide community and corporate psychological services. The company’s revenue grew from $900,000 to $1.25 million in the last financial year, a growth they describe as organic. In the five years since PsyCare was founded, the business has grown through word-of-mouth, rather than advertising. Growth has only sped up since word got out that they provide training in leadership, development strategies, and retention processes as well. PsyCare now has three offices with 16 psychologists, and plans are underway to increase the company’s presence in Sydney and Melbourne.

Cre8tive

James Wilson started his communications company Cre8tive in 1999, offering “total brand solutions” to a variety of businesses around the country. Seeing the potential for growth in the digital media landscape, the 34-year-old young gun turned his attention to offering solutions that include web portals, online television, and web conferences for clients. The biggest of those clients, at the moment, is Defence, with the health industry following closely. The business now employs 28 staff, with offices set to open interstate. Growth in the business over the last financial year was 30 percent, which Wilson says is a stabilising result from the previous year’s growth of 194 percent, a figure that got the business onto BRW’s fast 100 list.

This year Wilson was also named a regional finalist in the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

Unistraw International

Peter Baron developed a prototype for his innovative and award-winning straw in 1997 (with a pair of women’s stockings), but it wasn’t until 2005 that the business was launched, with CEO Martin Chimes in charge of taking the technology to the world.

That technology for delivering a healthy alternative to flavoured milk was named Sippah, and since its inception Unistraw has produced 400 million Sippah straws filled with ‘UniBeads’, or beads of flavour released as liquid is sipped through the straw.

A massive coup came in the form of a contract to supply McDonald’s 747 Australian stores, and some international stores, as well as 100 percent penetration into supermarkets. They now distribute to 103 countries, which is unheard of for such a young Australian company in this industry. Chimes says success has come on the back of a product that is “on trend”, hitting the market when childhood obesity demanded healthy options around the world.

In less than two years, the business has experienced phenomenal growth, with the most recent figures (not audited at this stage) reflecting an increase of 400 percent to $32 million dollars, up from $8 million the previous year.

These results saw the company take out this year’s category awards for both Telstra Business and Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

Stratsec

In the current climate, security is in forefront of many businesses minds. And since founding Stratsec in 2003, it’s certainly been top of mind for Doug Stuart and Peter Lilley.

The specialists in security consulting and technical assurance services, including ICT security, risk management and personnel security.

Launching in Canberra, the business has a presence in the ACT, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, with 18 full-time staff, and achieved growth in the last financial year of almost 90 percent.

This kind of success saw them take home an award at the recent Telstra ACT Business Awards. And with recent additions of big name clients like Microsoft and IBM to their books, and offering services that include computer forensics, growth is set to increase.

“From a business perspective, creating and opening our Stratsec lab, and being granted a license by [the Government’s] Defence Signals Directorate to perform IT security evaluations under the Australasian Information Security Evaluation Program (AISEP) has been a major milestone and success for us.”

AION Diagnostics

While many of us couldn’t begin to understand what goes on in the field of biotechnology, one thing’s for sure, Australia’s biotech industry is one that is on the rise, with interest coming from around the world. And Dr Anna Kluczewska, 31, was one person to sense this rise at just the right time.

In 2004 Kluczewska founded AION Diagnostics, a subsidiary of nano-technology company, pSivida, to help lead the charge in the concept of prevention being better than cure. Her team were able to exploit new technology that makes it easier to detect and diagnose a range of early-onset illnesses on a range of imaging tools (x-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI scans).

In a highly competitive and innovative industry, AION’s crowning achievement came when Kluczewska and her team of 50 (full-time staff and world-leading consultants) were able to commercialise the new technology and complete a spin-off from pSivida, with the wholly owned AION listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

And while you mightn’t understand her product, you’ll understand the growth, with results from the last financial year showing a 93 percent increase from the previous year.

Grill’d 

When Simon Crowe realised there was a gap in the market for healthy, gourmet burgers, he was quick to act, calling on a couple chefs and organising the lease for his first restaurant. Then the lease fell through. In hindsight, Crowe says it was the best thing to happen to his business, leaving him to concentrate on finessing his business plan and becoming “operationally-focused”.

This focus has meant the business, which started in 2004, has expanded to an impressive 15 stores—eight co-owned and six franchises—with system sales in the last year picking up more than 60 percent on the previous year.

Currently there are 19 full-time staffers on board in the business, plus a number of casuals and part-timers in the restaurants, and Crowe is confident this will grow even more as his interstate expansion continues. (Grill’d has recently expanded to Queensland, and the wheels are in motion for New South Wales operations.)

While the growth is impressive on its own, Crowe says his crowning achievements were his courage in leaving the security of the corporate world to start his own business, and creating a brand that is “owned” by his customers. “Their passion and ‘love’ of our people and product keeps us honest and motivated to improve and grow.”

TSG Key Group

Established eight years ago, his business doesn’t quite fit the start-up category, but at 32 years of age Dave Simmons certainly fits the bill for one of our fast-growing young guns.

The Simmons Groups (TSG) is a multi-disciplined engineering, contracting and construction company offering 24–7 service, including onsite maintenance, recruitment and commercial diving services. In a nutshell, TSG provides complete project management and maintenance services to markets that include mining, food and beverage, shipping and defence.

Being just 24 when he started, there were plenty of obstacles along the way, the single most significant obstacle being his age, with “senior” peers making it tough for Simmons to succeed. “The challenge has been continually sidestepping these people with the occasional head-on ‘attitude adjustment’ session.”

It obviously worked, with a win in this year’s Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, western region. But even more significant is TSG’s growth, with the most recent figures indicating an increase of just over 400 percent in the last year ($3.5 to $14.5 million).

THE PERFECT BREW

Di Bella Coffee

Phillip Di Bella

Phillip Di Bella’s interest in coffee wasn’t fostered by his Italian heritage, but by his 10-year job with Cosmopolitan Coffee. In fact, he admits that before he started there as a 17-year-old, he didn’t even like the stuff. But he continued to work there while completing his commerce degree, working his way up to sales manager and then general manager.

Di Bella, now 32, knew he was going to be a business owner from a young age, though he admits he didn’t think he would make his fortune in coffee. But this was where he saw a gap in the market. The coffee industry in Queensland was fairly new in those days, and he saw a gap not just in providing great coffee but also for creating a great brand, starting Di Bella Coffee in 2002. “I played a role in spreading the word about coffee, so to speak, in the days when people thought coffee was instant coffee!”

Starting out with just two wholesale accounts, and $5,000 behind him, Di Bella grew his customer base to 30 in one year. “Di Bella is about great coffee, great service, reasonable prices, but it’s also about a company full of people who are passionate and are all heading in the one direction. And that’s to become Australia’s biggest boutique coffee company.

“We’ve turned away more business than we’ve taken on. We’ve turned away all the McDonald’s business, the supermarket business, because we don’t want any of that—Di Bella is boutique, top-line café/restaurants. I want to be the Ferrari of coffee.”

In the beginning, it was pretty hard to stay true to his ideals for the brand and continue to pay the bills. It wasn’t strange for him to spend two hours in a potential client’s café making free coffee for their customers. “That’s how I got in there. Firstly by pinpointing the accounts I wanted to get my product into, and secondly by walking the talk and showing them what I was about.”

With growth in the business hitting a peak last year of 127 percent, the most recent figures indicate another healthy 95 percent growth. And the business now consists of 800 wholesale clients, expanding into Sydney and Melbourne markets, and establishing a roasting house. There’s also a technical arm that handles services, repairs and maintenance, for Di Bella and other coffee companies; the new online ordering system (coffeecentral.com.au); a new franchise system and signature cafes; and a Melbourne office set to open shortly, offering training for local baristas and home users.

Learning every day, Di Bella says that although he has achieved success he couldn’t have dreamed possible, he remains very grounded, with the ability to use his natural charisma to drive the business further. This trait certainly came in handy when he came up against bidding wars from some of the more established brands that were offering freebies and undercutting prices to drive him from the market.

He was upfront with clients in telling them that while he might not be able to match the price and incentives of the bigger brands, he was able to continue to provide the same quality service and product he always had, without underhanded tricks, so his most valuable clients stuck with him as he rode out the pinch from the competition. “They’d say you’ve got guts, we want to support you,” he says. “If you can make people want to hand their wallets over to you, you’ve done a good job!”