One of the EO Melbourne members that joined us this year is Colin Kleine, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Scalerr and Director at the Zack Group. Colin has quite the rep in the industry as one of the hardest-working recruitment agents running around! He holds a Bachelor of Commerce and has an industry-leading placement ratio.
Colin aims to go above and beyond the call of duty and constantly goes out of his way to deliver additional services to clients. He’s also a bit of a sports fanatic – and is a huge Melbourne Victory, Tottenham Hotspur, Socceroos, and Carlton Blues supporter.
Q: Can you give a brief background about you, your family and your business?
I’m a Russian-born immigrant, former accountant and a big sports and exercise fan (soccer, football, gym, Crossfit and Peloton.)
My parents are also first-gen refugees that left the Soviet Union for a better life; we are not a wealthy family at all and it made me appreciate the effort my parents made moving to a country where they didn’t speak the language for me.
With regards to my business, we started as purely a recruitment firm helping tech startups to land and expand in APAC. We have since broadened our capability to include helping startups raise capital, gain access to government grants, management consulting, helping them improve their valuation, and, of course, hiring their entire APAC team.
Q: What inspired you to be an entrepreneur?
I grew up in a poorer family, albeit one where my parents were hyperfocused on me being successful, getting high grades, going to university and securing a high-paying job (typical immigrant mentality.)
I took an interest in money and entrepreneurship after reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad at 16 years old, which very much resonated with my own life. Rather than being the person with an MBA, hire the person with an MBA.
Being quite individualistic, I found that working for someone in the corporate world never fulfil me. If I wanted to achieve something truly great in life, being controlled by someone else's choice in promotion was never going to be my pathway.
Q: What do you enjoy most about being an entrepreneur?
It allows me a certain level of freedom and creativity; a license to be able to dream.
Entrepreneurship to me is a life journey, and it feels that through the incredible people you meet, the highs you celebrate, all the new things you constantly need to learn, the pivots you need to make, and the rewards along the way; it genuinely seems that life takes on a new meaning and a wonderful direction.
Q: What are the biggest challenges you have faced as an entrepreneur?
The COVID crisis of 2020 and seeing my business nearly go bankrupt. The sense of somewhat helplessness at not knowing how to manage through such a period.
Another one is choosing a bad business partner (he is gone now). As many people can experience, a bad business partner can be incredibly toxic and stressful, especially when you cannot depend on the person at all, but you feel like you are stuck with them.
Q: Why did you decide to join EO?
To meet amazing and inspiring people that will drive me forward. You are, after all, the sum total of those 5 closest to you, and when you surround yourself with achievers you become that.
We are a growing business that faces a new series of challenges, it will give me the opportunity to learn from people smarter than I am on how to navigate this next phase.
Q: Can you share a golden nugget that you learned from your experience or from another entrepreneur or mentor in the past?
Never spend a cent of your commissions or dividends, invest the entire thing. Live off your base salary and plough all the good time excess cash flow either back into your business, or invest it aggressively for yourself (stocks, property, crypto or others); allow the power of time and compounding to do its thing, and financial security will be attained.