Matt Butterworth makes wedding planning easy

Staying close to the customers and understanding their needs is how Easy Weddings CEO Matt Butterworth keeps himself abreast of the trends and the demands of the market. While he makes wedding planning a breeze for couples, his journey to building his business was not without challenges and obstacles.

When the internet gained popularity among the public, Matt became so interested in it that he bought a book called “Learn HTML in 24 Hours” to see if he could build a website. He started playing around the HTML codes and eventually cracked it after three weeks. “But the book was lying to me. It wasn’t 24 hours,” Matt jokingly said as he narrated the early beginnings of his business. Serious on his pursuit of learning to build a website, Matt went back to university to study computer programming.

One of the things Matt wanted to do was to build a website but he needed a topic to base it on. Matt and his then-fiancée, now wife, Katrina were also looking for resources online that would make planning their wedding easy but found none. That inspired him to build a cool website that people would love to use to plan their wedding. Similarly, it was a familiar area for Matt because of the family business. “Since I already know a little bit about weddings, doing a lot of marquee weddings in the past, I based my site on it. We went from there. I built the website over the next few months and thought of making it into a business,” explains Matt.

Growing up in family businesses all his life, Matt was exposed to this kind of work early on. From the age of 4 to 14 years old, they ran a paddle boat business on the holidays. Afterwards, they went into the catering and party hire venture, which started with only his father, a chef, and his mother and him in the business before they grew it to 60 staff members. That time until he was 22 years old, he was so involved in the family business, doing party hire and marquees during the week and then functions and catering during the weekend.

Those experiences laid the foundation for his own enterprise when he eventually went on his own. Despite his exposure to entrepreneurship, Matt found that there were still challenges he had to surpass when he became a business owner. Doing it all on his own entailed more effort and sacrifices, especially that his business concept was not yet mainstream at that time.

When he put up his website, people were still used to the traditional way of advertising their businesses. “Back in 2000 to 2005, people wouldn’t want to advertise online. They’ll just advertise in the yellow pages.” In fact, businesses during those days didn’t even have an email address or a website, yet. Matt had to convince them to advertise with them by offering to build their website and set up their email addresses. It took a bit of education for these companies to catch on with what Matt was offering, while it also presented a huge opportunity to tap since the terrain was still uncharted. Unfazed, Matt kept pushing on and went about showing the value of their business to wedding suppliers. He and his team kept in constant contact with wedding suppliers as they travelled around the country doing education nights and similar activities, which they still do until this day.

Their persistence paid off. “It was just one client after another. It was more of moving them away from the yellow pages onto Easy Weddings. Before we knew it, we had about 1,200 suppliers advertising with us around the country. We ended up to be the number one wedding site in the country in about 2008.” And as Easy Weddings progressed, they had also deepened their relationship with their suppliers by not just providing them with advertising opportunities but by also supporting them in growing their businesses.

However, Easy Weddings was not the first when it comes to offering online advertisement spots. Based on Matt’s account, “There were a lot of other players in the market. We just managed to scale up our business quicker than the others. The market in Australia wasn't really big enough to sustain many big players. For us, our main challenge was battling Instagram, Google, Pinterest and other billion-dollar companies. To compete for the user's time online, we needed to create a good product, one that was sticky and can justify them leaving Facebook and Pinterest and so on.”

The way Matt’s business operates, brides or couples use the site for the 18 months that takes to plan a wedding in Australia. After that, the customers move on to their next life stage. That is why they had to continually engage with their customers to find new ones and get referrals. “We participate a lot and sponsor the main wedding expos around the country. Our team goes to those expos a few times a year. So, they are meeting the end user quite a lot. We talk to those girls and guys during the expo. We're also surveying those brides constantly and finding out what they like, what they don't like, and what we can improve,” Matt shared.

For Matt, he regards staying close to customers as the most important ingredient to his business success. It’s customer first, then his team second. Having the right people on his team made it easy for him to stir his business in the right direction.

He admits that when it comes to the second factor, there were hits and misses along the way. One of those was getting the wrong people to be part of his team. “As we employed more and more people, I think one of the biggest heartbreaks was just going through a phase with the team when we were hiring more on skills rather than on culture. So, we learned the hard way that it's not the best way to go about hiring people.”

Learning from that experience, Matt regards getting the best team early on as one of the first things he would do if he has to walk back on his journey and do it all over again. “I'll start with better people. I think there was a bit of a trap of just hiring what you can afford, like hiring people that are just of the same level as where you are in the business. But in a growing business, you need someone who is going to be suited to where it is going in two or three years’ time. I would probably spend more to get the best people earlier. I think that would be the number one thing I would change.”

So when he was able to gather the best people that fit his company’s culture, he was on his way towards growing his business and his team. Matt finds it rewarding to see his staff members evolve from how they were five years ago with the skills they came with and how much they have grown with the skills they have now.

Apart from his team, Matt is grateful to people who came along the way that contributed to his entrepreneurial journey. He has a lot to thank his father for in not only providing for their family but also in showing him what hard work is all about. When there’s an amount of work that stresses Matt out, he looks to his father, who is his main role model, to give him guidance and mentorship. But if there’s one businessman that he would consider as his role model, it would be Elon Musk because of what he has done with Tesla and SpaceX and with the way he gets his consumers and employees defined to his mission.

There were other people throughout his journey that Matt is thankful for because of the lessons they have given him. At one point early on in the business, Matt received the best advice he ever had from one of his coaches. “He told me that, ‘Matt, you only have a hundred units of energy. You need to make sure you know where you are spending all those hundred because once the hundred are gone, you cannot just pull energy from anywhere else.’ He was talking about sticking to your core business and knowing what your core business is since entrepreneurs often get distracted by bright, shiny diamonds constantly. It's just about staying true to your core, knowing what that core is and then spending all your energy just doing that rather than trying to branch out to all these other lucrative, interesting things.”

Matt sees his business to be fortunate that they have their niche and they are very specific with what they produce for that niche. They have successfully bridged the market that is planning their weddings and the suppliers that are constantly on the lookout for clients. Their uniqueness and their direction of sticking it to their core have become their competitive advantage.

He also regards organisations like EO Melbourne as a big help in his entrepreneurial journey. Although Matt only joined EO Melbourne in October 2016, he has already picked out a lot of learnings from the organisation that aid him in his continued path. Having a preset time every month in the Forum to take a step back and look at his business from a different perspective has contributed a lot to making improvements in the way he runs things. “In the Forum, that’s where we are looking at eight businesses and the challenges each one has and then coming up with solutions for those eight different businesses. There are a lot of similarities in the problems. So, we can apply the same learnings to each. It’s just good to get the perspectives of different people on things and the learnings about how people are going about solving their problems,” Matt reflected.

It was also a great help that Matt is managing the business alongside his wife. As CEO, Matt does all the jobs that no one else wants to do, apart from leading the pack to the direction where he wants to bring the business. He is more focused on innovating their products and services and in employing the right people in his business. His wife, Katrina, has the COO role. Her job is predominantly around the systems and processes to ensure that the business is running like a well-oiled machine. Being into the details, she makes sure that the team dots the i’s and crosses the t's, not leaving out anything that may affect the business adversely.

Having that personal relationship with a business partner can be a challenge to others. But Matt and Katrina have proven to be a formidable tandem. Matt points out clear and open communication as the key to their successful partnership. It also helps that they have a clear boundary on tasks, roles and responsibilities. “We work well together. We don't have any problems. I think we set down the rules very early on in our relationship. We agreed that I would be the boss at work, while she would be the boss at home. And that's worked out well,” he laughingly said.

The couple sees to it that they also spend a lot of time with their three children. Matt prefers to do things and go to places where there’s the least amount of technology possible. “I like to go fishing, four-wheel driving, camping, or anything that gets me away from the computer. But really, spending a lot of time with my three kids is the most fun at the moment. They're 8, 11 and 12. So, they're really at a fun impressionable age.”

Nevertheless, there are sacrifices in becoming a business owner. But there are rewards as well. “The best advantage of being an employer is turning up to work every day and seeing the people I chose to be on my team. That's important. I also get to travel quite a lot for work and join in things like EO. Just being able to do my own thing is very important to me. I think the sacrifice is that you can never give up and you can never take it easy. You're always thinking of work. No matter what you are doing, there's always a part of your brain thinking about work, how you can make things better, how you can grow faster and all other problems. But through the years, you just get used to that as you integrate that with your life. And for me, it's part of who I am,” declares Matt.

Truly, it’s not easy to be an entrepreneur, but it’s what Matt does to make it easy for their customers. And that’s at the core of their venture’s existence.

More of Matt Butterworth in his LinkedIn profile. Read about Easy Weddings at http://www.easyweddings.com.au.

Mark Calabro’s Double D: Determination and Discipline

Determined to take control of his destiny and to create something meaningful to the world, Mark Calabro went into business straight out of university, taught himself the ropes of running it, learned from the real world and helped establish one of the biggest Point of Sale providers in the food and beverage industry.

Ordermate Co-founder and Director of Sales Mark Calabro has the best job in the world. He gets to enjoy two of the things he loves: technology and food. As an engineer, he has a knack for technology and innovation. His affinity for food, on the other hand, can be traced way back from his childhood with his family. Surrounded by his grandpa and adults in the family, Mark loved watching them cook and share a meal as he was always very curious as a kid.

“I love how food brings back emotions. These are warm, loving and caring emotions from childhood. And I love to share experiences. I love to share things that I make. I love to share learnings with other people. As for me, food is about sharing, and sharing is a part of me,” he expresses warmly. On top of that, he loves to cook as he finds it very calming. As a matter of fact, cooking is a form of meditation for him.

Thus, Mark’s authentic zeal for food eventually extended to his business, Ordermate, which develops technology that helps improve the way restaurants, cafes and bars run their businesses and grow their profits. “We all have a genuine passion for the food and beverage industry. It translates to the quality of our product. It shows how we recognise and celebrate working with the very best in the industry: the best chefs, the best operators, and the best barmen,” the food-loving engineer articulates.

Ordermate’s early beginning was not as opulent as the industry it now caters. It simply started at a garage in 2002. “We were straight out of university, myself and my then business partners. We were at the university together taking up a double degree in engineering and multimedia. We started up our business as more of fun. It was just a project,” he describes.

Young and fresh out of university, they didn’t have much money to put into the business. “We lived on just water for the first few years,” Mark laughingly puts it as they weren’t taking any wage during the initial years of their business. It was all self-funded and its growth was purely organic. Since they had to take in a software developer and hire more people, their team had to expand. In effect, the ability to pay wages for their staff kept them up at night as cash flow was a real problem.

Add to that was the fact that Mark and his partners had no idea about sales and marketing. That part was just self-taught. They learned on their own feet as they went about running the business. What they did, however, was link up with friends who had some background in marketing to help them go about it.

The challenging part, however, was that marketing was crucial to their business during the early stages as they had to convince those in the food and beverage industry why they need a software to run their operations. When Mark and his partners were starting out, the industry wasn't used to the modern way of doing business, such as paying for a subscription service.

“The perception of the industry was just to buy a cash register that comes out of a box, have someone unbox and program it, then pay them the money. For us, we went better in a different way as we took a consulting approach rather than a box product. Back then, 90% of the market would buy the box product. A cash register was cheaper than our software,” Mark shares his sentiments.

Mark and his partners spent the first 5 to 8 years presenting to businesses the value of their product and the wisdom why they had to spend 5 to 10 times more on this technology. “It was then very much about showing our value proposition whereas today, everyone knows you have to buy a Point of Sale system. It's now just a matter of which brand to trust and which one has great service or good after sales or great tools.”

As competition is growing, the challenge for Mark and his team is to set their business apart from the rest. Their approach is to provide genuine care, interest and passion for the industry that will contribute to the betterment of the industry. On the other hand, they try not to be everything to everyone. Instead, they carved their niche by focusing more on bigger, larger and more professional, aspirational hospitality venues. While they deal with anyone in the food and beverage industry, channelling and focusing their initiatives towards businesses that give value to everything they do was a more efficient method. With that, they cater more towards serious business establishments where there's a marketing function or stock inventory.

With the constant ordeal of maintaining a positive cash flow, acquiring new skills, getting new clients and facing competition, Mark realises that running a business entails a lot of hard work. He loves what he does, that’s for sure. But people regard owning a business as something like a walk in the park. In reality, nothing can prepare a business owner with the challenges ahead when it comes to growing and building a business until he becomes one. “You have to live being a business owner. I think you don't know it unless you've done it. Thousands of people may think it is glamorous and it is a nice thought. What they don’t see is that there is a lot of sacrifices, like in relationships and personal life,” he shares. “For me personally, I never switch off,” he remarks.

The biggest heartache in his entrepreneurial journey was a business relationship that turned sour. There were some people in the organisation that they had to let go. Mark acknowledges that his mistake has been knowing that they have a big problem but not facing it head-on. So, apart from honing the various job functions that he has to learn and then excelling at them, managing people and building better relationships were also key learnings that he found on his journey. He finds that relationship-building and people skills are necessary for sales, marketing, recruitment and leadership. Part of that learning includes getting the right people on the team.

“As they say, ‘you’re as good as your weakest link.’ I learned that we have to get the right people to keep going. When it comes to systems and processes, we’re good on that stuff because we're engineers. I didn't value marketing and HR before, but as the business was growing and evolving, those are probably two of the most important things in any business. So, it’s about people, which is HR, and marketing, which is creating value for the market segments that you want,” Mark answers thoughtfully.

Recognising the significance of the different aspects of the business that they have not given much attention before, Mark learned to surround himself with business coaches and mentors that cared about the business and guided him through his entrepreneurial journey, particularly in areas where he didn’t have previous skills.

Earlier this year, Mark also joined EO Melbourne, where he has picked additional knowledge that he has applied in his business. “I learned the importance of execution and strategy. I also understood that having the absolute clarity and unity at the top of the business can penetrate all the way down to the staff.”

Putting all those tools together and applying them in his entrepreneurial voyage, Mark has seen the fruits of their labours. Their biggest win is getting customers in the Middle East. “We are in the UAE since 2 years ago. It's nice to see people from various walks of life in other parts of the world smile and enjoy using what we developed way back in 2002 out of a garage. We're on that path of growth now, which is about getting the team right and consolidating our brand and our position in the Australian market. Next year is about extending that and also growing internationally. We have 3 countries earmarked in 2018,” Mark eagerly shares.

In fact, Mark is ready to take on the world. They plan to have offices in each of the major continents. The expansion, however, is not only geographic. It also extends to having more services and products in the pipeline. Mark takes their plans further as he sees more changes to occur in the market and, in effect, in their business within the next few years. “It is going to be totally different from what it is now. The market will be different. Technology is open to disruption, so we have to be the one that must disrupt so as not to be disrupted.”

Mark remains hopeful despite the constant changes happening around him. “As the business is growing and as we are getting more resources and people to do the operational stuff, I see myself spending more time on the innovation flow. I really enjoy that. I think there is a lot of exciting change that is already starting to happen. I think it excites more people to come on board and have a career with us as well,” he retorts.

As he looks at the 15 or more years of his entrepreneurial journey at a macro level, Mark cites the important ingredients for a successful business cuisine. “I think that perseverance, hard work and continuous learning are the key things that I attribute to what I have, where I am, and what I achieve. Also, it’s people and passion first before anything else. It's the passion you have for the right people.”

While he continues to cook up more ideas that will help develop the food and beverage industry and take it to a higher level, he imparts an important message to other aspiring entrepreneurs. “You need to be determined to get through every day. You must be determined to keep learning. Determination and discipline. These are the key behaviours that you need to keep you going to the next stage and the next stage and the next stage.”

These are the same qualities that enabled him to take control of his destiny and led him to create something meaningful to the world. And with determination and discipline, he is ready for the next stage of his journey.

More of Mark Calabro in his LinkedIn profile. Read about Ordermate at http://www.ordermate.com.au.

The creator and problem-solver in Damian Blumenkranc

How do you solve a problem like Damian Blumenkranc? The CEO of Creativa Videos loves solving problems and enjoys creating new concepts. Having a solution mind comes naturally to him.

Since the age of 15 years old, he has built various businesses, from IT to several other industries, which he grew and then eventually sold. So, why did he retain a creative business out of all the ventures he has put up? “I'm a creator. I always need to do new things,” he simply quips.

Damian’s entrepreneurial journey started early on. In his teens, he has already put up a business venture that could be considered as a genuine business. That was in 1993 when he launched the first online shop in Argentina, selling computer parts to computer nets through an application called BBS, or bulletin board system, something that was prevalent before the explosion of the internet.

“That was probably my first really serious venture as an entrepreneur. From then on, I have always been looking for opportunities; building small businesses, running them and selling them,” he reminisces.

Although he has formal training on business, having a double degree on business and information technology (IT), he believes that his family background has a lot to do with his savvy when it comes to entrepreneurship. “I think most my acumen comes from the family. My father, being an entrepreneur, was always sharing, always getting us involved in the business, letting us know what happened, and letting us participate. He would tell us about the wins and the losses, as well as the problems and the good things that happened, and so on. And I learned. I learned that way,” recounts Damian.

Those learnings were the tools he brought with him when he came to Australia to study. As a student, his visa didn’t allow him to be employed by corporations, but he needed to survive. The only way for him to earn money in order to support himself was to create a business. “When I came to Australia, I started my own business and IT support which I ran for seven years during that time. I also started a pilates importing business, the first voice over IP integrator in Melbourne, and then later, a hair removal business as well. In time, we grew them, including a couple of online shops. We grew them, we made them profitable, and we sold them one by one,” he narrates. Damian now oversees Creativa Videos, which he co-founded with Miguel Donnenfeld, also his partner in his other businesses.

For someone who had the confidence to build a business at an early age, it was expected that he would survive in a foreign country. Which he eventually did, but it wasn’t an easy one, given that he had to plant those businesses in a land unknown to him. “Imagine parachuting into a new place where you know no one, where you have no connections.  It is a place where everyone knows everyone because it's a smaller city than what you are used to.  It's not your language, it's not your origin, it’s not the same culture as yours. So, it's always been a challenge – trying to network, trying to understand. What I did, I read a lot of books, like everything, because everything was new from tax legislation to mannerisms to language to pricing to negotiation methods. Everything was different,” he notes, describing those early days of starting his first venture in Australia.

The challenges didn’t stop there. The unusual business terrain of an unfamiliar soil was not the only stumbling block Damian had to confront as he went on building his own enterprises. Whilst nothing might have scared a 15-year old boy because he had nothing to lose for taking risks, it was no longer the same as Damian matured in age and experience. He recognised his vulnerability as he found further in his entrepreneurial journey that revenue and cash flow, which are significant components in sustaining a venture, always worried him. Since he bootstrapped all his businesses, which were typically self-funded, finances for capital were never in abundance. For him, generating not enough revenue is equivalent to failure, and that scared him.

Navigating through an unknown landscape with limited resources, it was inevitable for Damian to commit some gaffes along the way. One particular miscalculation he did was hiring the wrong people. “We were hiring too fast and firing too slow,” he interjects. Nonetheless, he has coped and managed to correct that mistake as he needed to, especially that his company is people-intensive; thus, having the right persons in the team is crucial to the success of their projects. Otherwise, they just have to make that important decision of letting go of the wrong people when things don’t work out fine. “When it happens, we have conversations with them. If we don't believe it is going to work, then we end it.”

Others may think that being a business owner gives one all the power and freedom in the world. “But that's not particularly true,” he corrects. Damian explains that being a business leader, there are a lot of responsibilities to attend to, whether to the staff or to clients or to partners. “The result is generally attached to what you do. Because you're attached to the business, you cannot do whatever you want. When it comes to the freedom as a business owner, you still have a lot of concerns that you have to work around with. You're also the one who sets examples and creates a culture because whatever you are doing, you can expect people to follow it as well. So, if you don't want them to do (something) that is not good for the business, then you shouldn't do it either.”

What others don’t see are the impediments a business owner has to deal with in order to keep the business going and make it grow. Some of these drawbacks that Damian has encountered he enumerates, “A big deal didn't come through, an investor said no, a letter of offer got rejected, staff that has not been committed as we like to… There were always setbacks. But I can't recall any massive disappointments.”

That’s because he chooses not to dwell on the undesirable things. His actions are guided by his business philosophies and work ethics of doing the right things, doing what he says he’s going to do, and honouring his mistakes by admitting when he makes one. “I always try to do the right thing. I find win-win scenarios for everyone and I make an effort to understand everyone else's point of view. Then, I come up with a solution that is great for everyone,” the creative problem-solver explains. “Sometimes, even if they take advantage of you. It's not worth it, it's not for me. It is better to focus on the future and not on the past,” he asserts.

The setbacks, the disappointments, and the challenges. They are obstacles along Damian’s path. Yet, he doesn’t allow these hindrances to put extra weight on his shoulder. He prefers to look at what’s ahead of him and focuses on it. He shares this piece of wisdom that aspiring entrepreneurs can apply in their respective experiences, “You must have a very clear vision of where are you going because that guides everyone else on the journey.”

Not only that. While having a goal is vital at the very beginning of everyone’s entrepreneurial track, it takes more than that to be able to carry on with the entrepreneurial voyage. “Start by listening. That's the one thing everyone should do. Start listening to clients, to markets and to people; that's how you can align yourself with them to understand them,” Damian advises.

As he went along, he picked more lessons that equipped him to be a better entrepreneur. These lessons also enabled him to evaluate his actions and mistakes and see where he could still improve on. If he could do things all over again, Damian thoughtfully thinks, “I will only consider businesses with a high leverage on my time. Businesses that can be propelled without having to take much of my time.”

Time is something that Damian puts a premium on and he ensures he manages his time efficiently. “Well, I have a very strict, very specific way of managing my calendar. It’s a method that I use that I created for myself, where I'm constantly reassigning priorities and putting absolutely everything I need to do in that calendar with the right times so that nothing slips and nothing falls through the cracks. That is important on an ongoing basis.”

There are a lot of other things he sees in himself that he admits he can still work on. One example is motivating a team. When asked how he manages his people, "With difficulty," he jokes. “That's still something I need to master, I guess. I'm still learning.” And another skill he needs to hone is celebrating his wins. “That's the thing, I don't. That's one of the things I have to learn more,” he laughs.

One particular element he came across that was most helpful to his professional and personal development as a startup founder was a support group. This he found in the form of EO Melbourne. “Last year I joined EO. Over the years, a lot of people have suggested that I join, so I made the call and last year I did. Through EO, I have picked a lot of knowledge, a lot of nuggets, and some really good fun as well. It’s mostly about inspiration to me. Going to these events, you get that one little thing that inspires you, that re-ignites you; that 1% you can change and make everything better.”

With all the businesses he has put up all those years, Damian has probably done so much that has changed the business landscape and made things a whole lot better. “We built one of the biggest production companies in Australia, in an industry that is extremely customized, extremely competitive, where most production companies failed in a short period of time. This is in an industry where I knew nothing about. So if I managed to build from scratch and run and create a brand – a recognised and successful brand – in a profitable way from day one, it is a massive success in itself,” he discloses.

So, how do you become an entrepreneur like Damian Blumenkranc? “Find something that you are most passionate about because it makes a lot of things easier. It's a cliché, but it's very real,” he imparts. And nothing more can drive Damian to even bigger successes than what he is most passionate about – solving problems. Now, Damian rushes on to something that needs his attention. This problem-solver is always on the move, and he is fueled by his desire to create new things and fix broken ones.

More of Damian Blumenkranc in his LinkedIn profile. Read about Creativa at http://www.creativa.com.au.

Zooming through Socrates Capouleas’ entrepreneurial lane

Socrates Capouleas loves three things: he reads business books that give him continuous learning; he bikes 4 to 6 times a week that pushes him through challenges and keeps him focused on his goals; and he collects timepieces that remind him of his wins, as well as inculcate a sense of urgency. Continuous learning, focus on goals, and sense of urgency are also some of the key takeaways he picked along his entrepreneurial path.

Anthony Iannarino’s book, “The Only Sales Guide You'll Ever Need”, was sitting on Socrates Capouleas’ desk, Director of PLP Building Surveyors and Consultants, at the time of the interview. It’s a book he has been reading recently, and he found in it some wonderful techniques that his sales team can use for the business.

“I only started reading business books about, I would say, 10 years ago, and that's been a gamechanger for me,” Socrates shares. But he doesn’t just flip through the pages of these tomes and park them afterwards. What he does is that he reads one book at a time and he doesn’t move on to his next book until he summarises the key issues in there and then organises a learning session with his team to talk them through everything that he learns from that book.

Reading books has also opened his mind to many ideas and discoveries, opening floodgates of potentials in him. For the longest time, he didn’t think of himself as the most innovative or creative person, something which held him back in the past. But when he uncovered that he could develop himself to be both creative and innovative through learning from these volumes, it presented a whole bunch of opportunities to him that helped him through his entrepreneurial journey.

This particular journey started in 1993, with Socrates merely straight out of university. At that time, he had a cadetship in a local government organisation, which he found uninspiring, as people were starting the day and leaving work looking grumpy. Thinking that it wasn’t for him, he looked for an opportunity to get into the private world.

That opportunity presented itself to him as he met an individual who later became his business partner. “He was working on a landmark Melbourne project, called the Southgate Complex, near the Yarra River. He needed some help and he was on his own. I said, ‘that sounds like the top of a landmark project and I want to be working on it,’ so I ended up quitting my job and effectively doing a startup with my business partner then just out of his garage,” he recounts.

Socrates had a building degree that could help them through their project, but he didn’t have any business or sales background with him that could support him in other aspects of the business. Not having run a business before and suddenly being exposed to the responsibility of running a profitable business, managing the numbers became the scariest thing for him. As he had to tend to tax office requirements, payroll, and all sorts of accounting issues without any previous training on the financial side, this unfamiliar territory became both a challenge and a scary thought for him. But that didn't stop him. To address that lack, he talked constantly with their accountant in order for him to absorb new learnings on that side of the business.

But he has his parents to thank for when it comes to his business savvy. They were extremely disciplined and had a high level of work ethic that had rubbed off on Socrates. By observing them, he had imbibed the habit of getting things done efficiently. Not only that, his dad ran his own business, and Socrates saw the rewards it extended to his father, particularly the flexibility to take the days off when he wanted to as well as the security that it provided him. But what looked like a wonderful prospect turned out to be an uphill battle when he finally found himself in the shoes of his dad as an entrepreneur.

“I certainly didn't think it was going to be as tough as what it was in those early years. There are so many learnings along the way that you have to pick up, and typically you learn from all the mistakes you made. I didn't realise that all of these are continuous challenges and mistakes you make along the way. I thought you will make a mistake in the first 6 to 12 months and then it will be like learning to ride a bike, that once you learn to ride, it will be all smooth sailing from there. While in the 20 years, it's never been smooth sailing. There are always bumps along the way,” the biking enthusiast professes.

The first bump was when they were starting out and there weren’t enough opportunities available. The marketplace was highly competitive and they didn’t have an established client base yet. They were not getting prospects to put forth proposals, and when they did, given the competitive nature and the lack of relationships, their strike rate was really low, at less than 20% only. It was frustrating for him not being able to convert any crucial win right.

Socrates also regards the whole people management thing as an extremely challenging part of running a business. According to him, “the challenge includes: managing people, first and foremost; learning to be a true leader rather than being a micromanager; and learning to recognise and understand the staff – who they are, what type of personality they are.” The latter has given him greater awareness as to how to adapt his management style to them. It has taken him years and years to do this as he continuously adapts the way he goes about it in order to keep up with the challenge.

He also counts not focusing on revenue growth as an oversight for them during the initial stages of the business. It was nearly a bit of a challenge for them in making sure that their cash flow and profit decisions were strong. In the early days, they were already content having a two-million-dollar business, then making it into a three-million-dollar business, and later becoming a four-million-dollar business. Now, they recognise that it’s not just about revenue, but it is also about having the profit position and the cash flow to support their growth.

Funds were definitely a big issue in running the business as they needed to reinvest some of it to generate more income, especially that their overhead also started to increase and their staff base was growing. At one point, they needed to relocate office which entailed a bigger expense on their part. The toughest part though was when they started a new business unit that caused an immense ordeal for them financially.

So much was invested in that business that it posed a huge risk to them. They recruited three senior consultants from a large global consulting firm to get on board, and significant wages had to be paid for these consultants. Plus, they had to build some brand-new software. Their investment ran to, more or less, around AUD 750,000 in total. They forecasted that within two years, they would be hitting certain targets. But as they were getting into the middle of year 2 and looking at their KPIs, things weren’t happening as they originally projected.

“We were four months coming into this mark of 24 months and we had to make a call whether this becomes a viable business moving forward or whether we had to cut it. It was really painful because we have already spent all of this money and we're thinking, how on earth can we just cut this business unit off,” Socrates expresses. If they would keep going, year 3 would even become more painful for them, so they had to terminate the contract before the 2-year mark.

As a biker who hits the trail regularly, he has learned to become more resilient as he pushes himself higher up his entrepreneurial path. He went ahead on his learning track by seeking out mentors, receiving an enormous amount of knowledge from them. And then, 7 years ago, a new opportunity to expand his horizons came upon him.

“I had lunch one day with a friend of mine who was in the tech industry and he was, at that stage, a member of EO Melbourne for 5 years. He explained it to me and what I liked about it was the idea of a more structured approach to the learning journey, because certainly, I’ve always been an advocate of trying to continuously upscale and learn new things,” Socrates enthusiastically remarks. He appreciates what EO offers to its members: the different avenues for causes; the ad hoc speaker events with an open forum; and the networking opportunities to speak with other business owners. This includes the occasions to chat with people who have similar issues – be it business, personal or family concerns – and be able to talk to them in confidence, which he regards as a fantastic support structure. One major thing he learned from the EO activities was on scaling up his business, particularly on parts and departments of the company that he wasn’t previously focusing on. Eventually, it became another profit stream for them.

Throughout his journey, finds great importance in establishing a solid relationship with clients. As a matter of fact, to this day, many of these clients have been with them for already 20 or more years. The key to this is that Socrates understands his own philosophies and he stays true to them: to act with integrity and honesty at all times; and to keep one’s promises. These philosophies have gone a long way in helping Socrates keep his clients. He found them as a proven recipe for continued loyalty and repeat business, as happy clients were open to refer them to more prospects.

His hard work, perseverance and values eventually bore fruit as one of his businesses landed some significant government contracts, muscling up some large competitors. Amidst all these wins, Socrates regards another success that is closer to his heart – his people. “The other great win is seeing a couple of our people really step up and run one of our business units. We have two team leaders that run that business unit, and it's been great watching their journey and seeing them able to grow the business unit, train all of our staff and keep an engaged group. It's been fantastic,” Socrates beams.

He and his team celebrate these wins by sharing plates and breaking bread or doing other activities that they all enjoy. In addition, Socrates, being a watch fanatic, rewards himself with a new watch every time they complete a project, as a token and reminder of their success. It is a very apt gift for his own self, given that he values time and puts a priority on executing strategies with a sense of urgency.

When he sums up his biggest learnings, he has this to say. “Executing fast has been a gamechanger for me. It’s just getting things done quickly, that’s been a real lesson. Then, the continuous learning through reading and mentoring. In my own perspective, I hope I’m still on this learning journey in my 80’s and 90’s. And then having precise goals and sharing them with the staff. I think they are powerful tools because when you share them and it’s out there, we all row to the same direction and we hit some of the precise goals that I have articulated to the team.”

For now, Socrates gets up early from bed almost every day to train for the Holden Giro Della Donna cycling event that is happening in two weeks from the time of interview. As he translates biking into his journey in the business world, he gets an indescribable feeling after a bike ride up the hills, beating his all-time high, driving him to continuously challenge himself.

More of Socrates Capouleas in his LinkedIn profile. Read about PLP Building Surveyors and Consultants at http://www.plpaust.com.

Dean Cherny drives Marketing Melodies to success

"As an entrepreneur, you have to be quite visionary. But not just visionary, you have to be willing to drive it. You have to drive it.” - Dean Cherny, Founder and Director at Marketing Melodies

Throughout Dean Cherny's 28-year entrepreneurial journey as Managing Director and Founder of Marketing Melodies, he has navigated his company solo for the majority of its existence. When Dean attended his first EO event, he was faced with the following questions: If you have a bus and you need to fill it with people, who will be the people you want to take in? How will you arrange them inside the bus? Will you drive it yourself or will you stay in the passenger seat? These were key questions Dean pondered on, and two pertinent takeaways stood out: one, he needed the right people on the right seats in his bus; and two, he must drive his bus and not just be a passenger.

Since his hands took the helm, Dean has happily driven his figurative bus – his company, Marketing Melodies – through an exciting ride, with his eyes set towards a more thrilling journey ahead.

When it comes to steering the wheel, Dean is persistent and unyielding. One particular example: He pursued his biggest client for 27 years until he finally got them to join him on his bus. That is why his proudest moment ever was when he eventually got a resounding “yes” from the Just Group after wooing them for almost three decades. Another feather in his cap was the launch of storePlay, an online app that makes the in-store music experience more convenient and satisfying. Since they say ‘good things come in threes’ Dean’s third conquest came one week prior to this interview, where he signed a reseller deal that would change the whole in-store landscape.

All these feats have gotten Dean to whistle a happy tune. Despite his accomplishments, he never forgets to glance at his metaphorical rear-view mirror every now and then, to look back to where his entrepreneurial bus started. It was in a classroom during his final year in the university back in 1989 when they were discussing points of sale. He raised his hand during the lecture and, being a DJ, asked about music in the retail environment. The lecturer acknowledged his question but also challenged his idea, so Dean decided to do his final year assignment on in-store music.

With two classmates, Dean worked on his idea and, as part of the assignment, presented it to the marketing manager of Portmans. Unexpectedly, the concept caught on with the retailers. As a matter of fact, Portmans wanted Dean to roll out the proposal straight away. High from that positive outcome, Dean went ahead and took the plunge. On the other hand, his colleagues backed out from implementing the concept. “Once we had done the presentation, they actually didn't think there was much opportunity in it that they decided not to be involved. So, I did it by myself. I still see those guys and we do have a bit of a laugh on that fact that this business has gone on to become successful, and that they chose not to get involved,” Dean chuckled.

You might say that Dean had the right tools that gave him a good head start on his entrepreneurial journey: he had training in marketing and he had experience with music as a DJ. Getting into the in-store music line of business was a rational one. Yet, it was his exposure to business through his parents -- his father was in shirt manufacturing while his mother had a travel agency -- that gave him valuable inputs on how to run his own. They also went through ups and downs as entrepreneurs, which opened Dean’s eyes to the realities of running a business.

“My parents, when we were growing up, they were doing it very hard. We were middle-income. There were times when they couldn't afford babysitters,” a thoughtful Dean remarked. For Dean and his two other siblings, school holidays meant going with mom or dad to work. Their playground was their parents' offices. They would help or be present with people working with their parents. Those experiences and their parent’s conversations about their respective businesses over dinner table provided Dean with the exposure he needed that became a foundation for his own business journey.

Dean had seen his father hit some tough times in his business, so he had a good grasp of the challenges that the journey entails. “I think some people do not realize the risk that entrepreneurs take.” Dean was quite pensive when he pointed out, “What people don't think about are the pressures. Generally, I'm the one who's at risk; it's my investment. Because it's essentially funded by me, if things don’t go well, that can very quickly have an adverse effect on my family. I've seen things like that happen with family members who were entrepreneurs and things didn't go well. And I've seen how that can affect them.”

But being a focused and tenacious businessman, failing wasn’t an option for him. “I didn't think failures were even something that I contemplated. Like I said, it was a risk to do it. But I knew I was going to be successful. I had no doubt that I would succeed,” the determined entrepreneur professed.

For instance, when he was starting out and was making inroads, his competitor underestimated him. “What they used to say was ‘ Dean’s just a fly by night. He is just a little kiddie. He's not going to be around in a couple of years.’ But I’m still here, and I don’t think there is anyone else in my industry who has operated longer than I have.”

Dean was out to prove the naysayers wrong. When he decided to turn his assignment into a business, he went ahead and secured the licensing of music so that the service he would offer would be legal, even when he had to toil hard just to get this done. He did the mixing of the records – from cassettes to burning it on CDs to creating it on hard drives – within the confines of his bedroom. He looked for suppliers and dealt with them when he needed to outsource some of the production. He made presentations, closed deals and looked after his client’s needs. He did all these on his own as he ran the business by himself until his first employee mid-2014.

These were bumps he endured, but because he loved what he was doing, the ride on his entrepreneurial shuttle was an unbelievably exciting one. The flipside of the risks and the intensive labours was the excitement and the adrenaline of achieving the goals. “If you put together the right plan to achieve the goals, and when you finally achieve your goals, the reward is second to none,” said Dean.

Being an entrepreneur, the success is magnified. Dean believes that when you’re working for someone and you win a deal, “it doesn’t compare to the excitement and the thrill as when you’re the owner.”

Unwavering in his fortitude to take his business even further, Dean went ahead with his other passion: learning. He gorged on workshops and talks when he joined EO Melbourne three years ago. And in that length of time, he's only missed five events. “I’ve gone to everything. I think I can truly say that I've got something out of every one of them. In that regard, I just love hearing people's experiences and the sharing of going down the path of leadership. I've exposed myself to EO members on the global level through GLC and through Ignite. I'm just like this kid in the candy shop, and I just want more and more and more because I'm loving the opportunity to learn.” Those learnings also boosted his confidence, especially on how to deal with clients and prospects.

These days, Dean furiously devours business books, inspired by speakers he heard from the talks. He is a tech geek, so he is learning more about how he can use technology to expand Marketing Melodies, not just geographically, but to other territories. His EO journey has strengthened his resolve of developing himself as a holistic entrepreneur – a businessman, a father and a husband – while he continually improves his skills, his mindset and capabilities.

Dean is content that he has good life balance. “I work from home. So, that's great as I get to see the kids when they come home from school, and I can go have dinner with them at 5:00, and bath them, and put them to bed or help my wife with domestic duties. And then if I need to do a little bit more work, I can do that,” the young father revealed.

For Dean, the best thing about his business is that he gets to have the personality that he wants to be. “I am also a commercial creative. I think commercial creatives are quite rare. Generally, people are either commercial and not creative or creative and not necessarily commercial. And I think that held me in good stead so I've been able to flirt and move between the two.”

Part of that commercial creative personality is constantly having a good relationship with his clients. “Call it crazy,” Dean quipped, “but all my clients have my mobile phone number. I am unbelievably responsive to clients’ needs.”

That’s a good driver who knows how to take care of his passengers. Nevertheless, despite his business acumen, there are incessant twists and turns throughout his entrepreneurial voyage. One, he has to navigate through the retail industry, which is undergoing turbulent times. Many brands are price conscious even though Marketing Melodies price their products and services very reasonably, and second, there’s the need for continuing education of businesses. “We supply in-store music and we're essentially like a version of Spotify for business. But people don't understand that Spotify isn't legal for in-store music or to use in their business. And so, they are probably our biggest competitor even though they shouldn't be competing with us. So, there's a big education piece.”

With his “never give up” attitude, Dean is keen on working his way through it. Looking back to that moment in university, Dean didn’t get a good mark from his assignment, but that didn't stop him from working on his idea.

“As an entrepreneur, you have to be quite visionary. But not just visionary, you have to be willing to drive it. You have to drive it.” These are sound words from a sound guy.

More of Dean Cherny in his LinkedIn profile. Read about Marketing Melodies and its service Store Play at http://www.storeplay.com.au.

The unrelenting pursuits of Kym Huynh

"God hasn't given me some special power. God hasn't made me any different to the average person. Where I attribute my successes in life to is my unrelenting pursuit of excellence in every single thing that I do.” - Kym Huynh, Founder at WeTeachMe.

Is being an entrepreneur something that is innate or does it develop over time? That may be subject to debate, but Kym Huynh, one of the founders of WeTeachMe, believes that one is born to it, and that is evidenced by patterns of behaviour over time. “I believe that you're born an entrepreneur. I believe there are inherent traits and characteristics that consistently manifest over and over and over in one's life. It's only when you reflect that you connect the dots; that the behaviour is consistent with that of being an entrepreneur,” the young businessman professes.

Coming from a family consisting of hardworking parents who arrived in Australia as immigrants, Kym lives and breathes what he learned and saw from them. Kym, thinking of his parents, recounts, “They left Vietnam after the Second World War and they came to Australia as refugees, on the boats. For them, they left an entire world that they knew behind them -- their culture, their family, their language and their innate sense of belonging -- and they started their life again in a strange and foreign land. To do something like this requires an inordinate amount of courage, tremendous bravery, unrelenting persistence, and dogged resilience; and these are qualities that I live and breathe each and every day.”

Given their experiences and the challenges they faced, Kym learned a lot from his parents. One of the things he learned is the results that come from being unrelenting. Kym likens this to waves that hit sea cliffs. The waves keep on hitting and no matter what happens, it will always keep on hitting. “And one day, if I hit something hard enough, and if I hit it the right way, something’s going to give.” That is the philosophy that Kym lives by. With conviction, he avowed, “I may not be the best, and I may not be the fastest learner, and I may not be the cleverest, but I will be unrelenting. I will never give up. And one day, somewhere, something is going to give.”

Kym exhibited his unrelenting attitude and his entrepreneurial abilities early on. When he was eight years old, he used to collect papers, odd bits and pieces of them with varying colours, textures and designs. He would approach his classmates and sell them his papers and they would gladly buy the papers at 50 cents or for a few dollars. Unbelievably, Kym's papers were always sold out, leaving him happy with his venture.

Three years later, like any kid in school, Kym moved towards collecting marbles, which was the playground’s currency. One day at lunch, he observed his schoolmates as they set out to win marbles. The good ones cheered when they acquired three to five marbles for their winnings. Kym thought, “there must be a better way I can quickly amass a lot of marbles.” An a-ha moment came. He rounded up his schoolmates and announced a new game he devised. With a container lid at hand, he placed it on the floor and challenged the other kids to throw their marbles into the container lid, at 10 to 15 meters from where he stood. If they could get their marbles to land and stay in the container lid, he would give them 50 marbles. But if they missed, he got to keep their marbles. The kids excitedly lined up, and showed off their throwing prowess, only to their dismay. His plan worked. He eventually amassed hundreds of marbles, and he gleefully went back to his classroom with the marbles in his arms. Alas, he tripped and the marbles flew everywhere, leaving the other kids to rush and seize whatever they could.

Kym has many anecdotes to share about his childhood. While they may sound funny,  these incidents left a dent in his life, which laid the foundation for his entrepreneurial journey. For instance, there was this time when his mom asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up. The boy who sold papers in school and amassed large quantities of marbles answered without batting an eyelash, “I want to be a dolphin trainer.” His shocked mother countered, “No. You’re going to be a lawyer.” And so, he trudged the path to becoming a lawyer. He loved the cases he worked on, but he later found out that his bigger passion lies in business. Still, he credits his experience as a lawyer for training him how to research, and how to structure and articulate his thoughts, which he applies to many facets of his life, including business.

Then again, Kym didn’t go after his passion in the onset. He was just starting to practice law and was travelling in South America when he met a freak accident. The car he was a passenger in drove off a cliff. Scenes from his life flashed before his eyes – him hugging his mother, devising games with his kid sister, spending time with his closest friends – and he thought it was going to be his end. Luckily, the car landed on a tree and he survived the ordeal. He was transported to an operating table and spent a year in recovery. That incident left a significant impact on his life because it made him realise that life is short.

Kym declares, "Life goes by in a blink of an eye. So I want to make sure that if I dedicate my time to something, I want to dedicate it to something that makes my heart beat, something that I am truly passionate about, and something that I will stay awake for days-on-end to accomplish. I want to live a life that is intensely passionate and extraordinary in every possible way.”

It was then when he took a turn towards his passion and opted to take the business track where he was able to recognise the need to seek other people’s help. Growing up with his parents working multiple jobs and working incredibly long hours, Kym became independent at an early age. As a result, he never asked for anything and he did things on his own. That was his methodology at first until he found a better way of doing things. “In business, there are so many lessons, so many obstacles, and so many hurdles that if you try to solve everything yourself, it will take you an inordinate amount of time. What I learned was that there should be no fear in reaching out to someone who has achieved what I want to achieve, and to sit down with them and ask them to share their experiences or their nuggets of wisdom. This alone will save me years of learning the hard way myself.”

One particular nugget of wisdom he received from his parents, which he considers as a very important one, is the value of learning. “They've always said to me: In life, you can lose your house, your car, your money, your clothes, and all the material possessions that you have amassed. You can lose everything. But you will never lose what you have learned.” The idea of continuous learning has stuck with Kym his entire life as he has seen firsthand how learning can be transformative not only to one’s life but also to those that surround that person.

Wanting to take that idea a step further and as his way of honouring his parents, Kym planned to set up something that can encourage learning, one that will lead to changing the individual, those surrounding the individual, the community and, eventually, the world. From that seed of vision sprung WeTeachMe: home to Australia's best and most popular classes.

Along with three other friends, Kym co-founded WeTeachMe. As Kym would put it, they started on the smell of an oily rag. With basically nothing, these four individuals worked only on the idea that they could increase knowledge in the world by disseminating and democratising education. And being young, green entrepreneurs, they committed several mistakes along the way.

Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, Kym recognises that errors and miscalculations are part and parcel of the learning process. As Kym quotes George Naddaff, a serial entrepreneur and founder of New Boston Chicken, "No business, no problems. No problems, no business."

The biggest blunder Kym can remember was when they did not conduct customer research prior to launching the first WeTeachMe platform. There they were, pouring all their energy and spending sleepless nights designing and developing the initial website. However, after they launched their “baby” to the public, a month came and no one visited the site. It was heartbreaking, but more than that, Kym felt sad for the team. Sitting down with one of his mentors, Kym voiced his misery and asked where they went wrong. “Did you do any customer development?” he was asked. Learning from that, they sprang into action and talked to hundreds of customers before they launched the second platform. Only then they were able to see growth on their site. Now, they are the biggest school in Australia.

But did you know that this entrepreneur who loves learning often feels like he knows a little? “What I love about EO is that I constantly feel like I am the dumbest person in the room. It’s a feeling I have never quite shaken off, nor do I want to. I constantly feel like I have to run and chase to keep up with my peers. I love that feeling because that's when I'm most challenged and when I am most engaged.”

As much as he loves challenges, this lawyer-turned-entrepreneur also gets tired, so when things get tough and when business gets difficult, he goes back to his family, which he considers his fortress. He recalls the words of entrepreneur, educator and public servant, Warren Rustand, “No success in life compensates for failure in the home.”

And that’s what makes him unrelenting. “I am not afraid to put myself out there, grab risk by the proverbial horns, try new things, and leap in all-guns-blazing. But, I cannot take credit for this, because behind that is a very strong family that believes in me, and supports me in every single thing that I do. For me, even though I may be taking a risk, I like to think of it as taking a risk from a position of strength.”

Kym makes sure that he pays attention to four things that make up life as a whole: business, personal, family, and community. He puts a premium on his relationships in these various aspects of his life. In fact, relationships play a key role throughout his journey, and he gets recharged by conversing with people close to him or spending time with them. That same connection with people got Kym to sell his bits of papers when he was eight. “I found that my classmates bought the paper, not because of the product itself - the product was great, by the way - but mostly because of the relationship they had with me.”

He may have tripped and dropped his marbles, but Kym never gives up. Now, this man who loves learning has a company about learning, and he continues to learn in the process. There is no stopping Kym as he is unrelenting in his pursuit of excellence.

More of Kym Huynh on his LinkedIn profile. Read about WeTeachMe at https://weteachme.com/.

Jason Ellenport on starting the day early with a healthy mind

With a goal in mind, the time frame to do it, and the accountability to make it happen, Jason Ellenport swims into rough waters and towards success.

Coming from a cold-water swim in the ocean, Jason Ellenport, one of the principals in the mergers and acquisitions advisory firm, Edison Partners, enthusiastically shared the story of his entrepreneurial journey. He looked relaxed, yet full of fervour, and right off the bat, he makes other people feel at ease conversing with him for the first time.

Jason spoke, “For me, entrepreneurship is about having a healthy mind as much as it is having a healthy business. I've benefitted enormously from doing things like meditation.” And a swim in the ocean early in the morning, which seems to be an arduous activity to start a day. It is because while being an entrepreneur can often look attractive and exciting, it is not really an easy path. According to Jason, it takes a lot of hard work and a long time at the wheel. You might find it daunting, but looking at the stark parallelism of the cold water and the ordeals of everyday living, you can pick a grain of wisdom behind his morning ritual.

“Doing these things that are a challenge outside of your business help you. If I can swim in the darkness in rough water, then I feel like I can handle anything that the day throws at me. So, it's really about preparing yourself for the day. Whether it's meditation, or yoga, or swimming, or going for a walk, I think getting up early and seizing the day is absolutely critical to success, and having a clear mind to be able to achieve success,” the business strategist added.

Waking up early is a habit he imbibed even at an early age. When he was eight years old, he already had small jobs and tiny business ventures. He used to get up at 4:30 a.m. to deliver papers, and then repeat this for the evening paper rounds. On Saturdays, he would be up at 6:00 a.m. and then jump the fence to the golf course to find golf balls, which he would wash and sell later to golfers who lost them. He laughed as he remembered the folly of it all but that was quite ingenious for an eight-year-old.

Growing up, Jason always had a job. “As a kid, I was always wanting to earn my own money and to be in control of my own fund, I guess, rather than being reliant upon pocket money or someone else's generosity. I think I understood the link between hard work and freedom quite early in my life.”

However, he wanted more of that freedom where he is able to make his own choices, “rather than be obligated to work to somebody else's clock,” as he puts it. After five years of being employed, he felt he didn’t want to work for anyone else ever again, so he set out to build his very first business while studying MBA at the Melbourne Business School, with his father as his partner. Still aiming for bigger things, the young, dynamic Jason went on towards going on his own, so it comes as no surprise that right after MBA, he raised some money from local investors to build a technology business with a colleague from MBA.

It was not an easy start, as he described themselves as “wet behind the ears and inexperienced”, making mistakes along the way. They were going around in circles rather than having a clear understanding of exactly what it was that they were trying to achieve. Being a little green was in itself already a hurdle that they had to overcome, and it didn’t help that Jason was struggling with the fear of failing. For him, this is what he considers as the scariest part while he was starting his own business. Never really failing on anything, it scared him that he might not actually succeed. In hindsight, he recognised he was reaching for really impossible stuff that was not quite achievable. Then, he also started doubting his abilities. If he would do it all over again, he would spend a lot less time worrying about things and a lot more time just getting stuff done.

They were hard lessons learned, but those strengthened him as a person and as an entrepreneur. The learning continued as he went on his business-building path, dipping his fingers across a range of different industries. For example, when he was starting out, he viewed things as black and white, until experience showed him that there are several shades of grey in various situations. “The more I learned, the more I realized what I didn't know. But I think the simple things are probably the most important, such as creating the time to think, rather than just spending all the time doing.”

He found that the simplest things were the most effective, even in dealing with customers, such as engaging them rather than keeping them at arm's length. “I've always learned the most by building very strong relationships with the customer and building a trusted advisor relationship with the customer,” said Jason. And then he learned to listen more.

Opening his ears to other people, bits of wisdom also trickled in. “I think the best advice that I had was simply that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Definitely, it is the best advice I've had, which is to be clear about what your objectives are, plan carefully, and it's okay if the plan changes or if you don't achieve the plan, but be deliberate in the way you plan for success.”

And it was truly towards success where he eventually turned out. Jason still vividly remembers that special day back in 2000 when they were the first to run an online reverse auction in the southern hemisphere. He and his business partner were the only ones in their tiny office, watching the auction happen on the internet. It was a tense moment, but when it was finished, they were doing lots of high fives, emphatic with their achievement. More successes came along, and after 10 years, they had the biggest cause for celebration and relief – being able to pay back their investors handsomely.

With all those frustrations, learnings and accomplishments accumulated in his memory vault, he now finds gratification in guiding those who are just in the starting line. “The reason why I've chosen to do this mergers and acquisitions (M&A) business now is that… all our customers these days are entrepreneurs. I think that's something that I'm particularly enjoying, which is to be helping entrepreneurial businesses with the biggest events of their career: selling businesses; raising capital. It's nice to be able to do that from a position of knowledge, rather than just be a transaction adviser who has never actually run an entrepreneurial business before.”

Helping others also extends to his other endeavours, such as EO Melbourne. Positioned in what he considers as the front door of the organisation, he finds it rewarding to see new members make it through the process, especially those who complete the EO Accelerator Program. He also found a good support group in EO, which he described “as a sounding board that I never really had before.”

It’s not just his entrepreneurial experience that puts a twinkle in his eyes though. He lights up whenever he talks about his family -- his wife, Vicky, and his 10-year-old daughter, Cleo, who is the love of his life. But as quickly as the smile appeared on his face, a sombre look immediately replaced it when he mentioned about losing a person dear to him: Ben Cowen, founder of Edison Partners; who was his business partner and a great friend.

Cowen’s passing early this year reminded Jason of how things can quickly change. It also brought home the importance of spending more time with family and of enjoying each day in my life. His life purpose also shifted, wanting to experience more of what life can offer. Looking at the future, he sees himself spending a lot more time living through various encounters, a few years down the road. “I'd like to have a bit of mini-break and mini-retirement. I want to see a lot of different countries. I want to meet a lot of different people. I want to experience a lot of different things,” he quipped.

With Cowen’s death, Jason and his remaining partner in Edisons Partners, Shaf Dewani, realized they couldn’t do it all on their own. At present, they are building a team of fantastic, bright, young people with whom they have the pleasure of working with and learning from. He realised that businesses, in general, do a poor job in empowering these young minds that are often pigeon-holed and given limited control. Imagine a young Jason during his employed years, seating in his tiny cubicle, wanting to spread his wings, and you get the drift of where he’s coming from.

For Jason, “We probably are the opposite of the spectrum.” He recognises the need to support these emerging and soon-to-be business leaders. “A lot of what we are able to learn are from these young people. I guess the key lesson for me is to surround myself with great capability and get out of the way, basically, and let them do their magic. That's a really important value within our business: to trust people to achieve excellent outcomes and support them wherever they need this for. We want to throw people into the deep.”

With such trust and confidence, you can picture thousands of young businessmen and entrepreneurs getting into the deep, braving the proverbial rough waters, and swimming in the ocean at the break of dawn, just as Jason does.

His bits of advice for startup entrepreneurs: “One, tap into experience because there's a lot of people who have done similar things before, and most of those who have been very successful are very happy to share their experience. One of the curious things about entrepreneurship is that it seems you need to make the mistakes yourself in order to learn, and I think that's a little bit silly. A lot of those mistakes should be avoidable by leveraging on the experience of others who've already trodden that path. The second thing I would say is: create the time to think, not just do. And then the third thing is: create specific goals over time frames and manage yourself to be accountable to those time frames, even if you don't achieve what it is you're planning to do.”

And going back to his daily habit, it is good to start the day early with a clear mind and make your way towards achieving success.

More of Jason Ellenport on his LinkedIn profile. Read about Edison Partners at http://www.edisonpartners.com.au.