Opinion: Most people assume successful businesses begin with a master plan. Ghostwriter and author Bernadette Schwerdt argues the reality is far messier, and far more interesting
Most people assume successful businesses begin with a master plan, a brilliant idea or an iron-clad launch strategy.
The reality is often very different. Take Uber’s arrival in Australia. Today, it’s one of the world’s most recognised brands, backed by billions of dollars and operating in hundreds of cities, but few people realise it got started here with a simple flyer. Yep, a flyer.
David Rohrsheim, Uber’s first general manager for Australia and New Zealand, and two colleagues drove to Sydney Airport and slipped flyers under the windscreen wipers of limousine drivers waiting for their next fare.
The flyer invited them to learn how to find new customers and earn extra income. What Uber was really looking for, however, was a handful of drivers willing to test an app that nobody had heard of. A few drivers said yes. That was enough. From those humble beginnings, Uber went on to become one of the world’s most disruptive companies.
One pivot leads to another
After interviewing more than 100 of Australia’s leading entrepreneurs and ghost-writing books for many of them, I’ve discovered that how a business begins, and how it appears to have begun, are often two very different things.
The business that founders become famous for is frequently several pivots removed from the business they originally set out to build. What seems like luck, vision or an overnight success is usually a series of small decisions, unexpected opportunities and course corrections that only make sense in hindsight.
Take Adam Schwab. He is best known as the co-founder of Luxury Escapes, one of Australia’s most successful travel companies. But the entity that eventually became Luxury Escapes went through several reinventions before it became the behemoth it is today.
Their first venture involved leasing apartments to backpackers, but as rents increased, margins tightened and the business became harder to scale, they realised they needed a new approach. They moved into executive apartments, then launched an Australian version of Groupon called DEALS.com.au.
When they did a deep dive into the data, they noticed that the travel deals consistently outperformed all the other categories. One pivot led to another and eventually Luxury Escapes emerged.
Build it and they will (eventually) come
Janine Allis followed a similarly unconventional path. In 1999, after seeing the explosion of healthy fast food on a trip to the United States, Janine came back convinced Australia was ready for juice bars. No-one believed healthy fast food could beat burgers and fries, but she’d seen the data. “People thought there was a grand strategy,” she said. “But it was just me testing juices at home, adjusting recipes based on whatever my kids thought tasted good.”
She opened her first store in Adelaide in 2000. It started with a bang, literally. The shop was packed and Janine thought, ‘This is incredible. We haven’t even started marketing and they’re lining up.’ Only later did she learn the crowd was there because of a bomb scare in the sushi store next door. When the panic dissipated, so did the crowd.
But those same people came back the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Demand was so strong the store was profitable within a few weeks of opening. Every dollar earned went straight back into the business.
She and her husband, Jeff, worked quickly and efficiently, opening 18 stores in 18 months, with Janine working until 1am most nights, breastfeeding between meetings, learning accounting from a QuickBooks tutor, firing people who didn’t fit and solving problems as fast as they arrived. It was exhausting, but as she said, “No-one gives a sh– how you feel. You just do it.”
From a single store in Adelaide to more than 900 stores across Australia and around the world, Janine is now Chair of Retail Zoo, leading a portfolio of well-known brands.
The problem is the opportunity
Airtasker was born out of a simple everyday problem. In 2011, co-founders Tim Fung and Jonathan Lui were helping a friend move house when they uncovered something interesting. Rather than spending their weekend carrying boxes, several friends said they would rather contribute money and pay someone else to do the work.
That sparked an idea. What if there was an online marketplace where people could outsource everyday jobs to others willing to do them? The concept became Airtasker, a platform connecting people who needed help with tasks such as furniture assembly, cleaning and handyman work.
Drawing on relationships they had built while working at Amaysim, Fung and Lui secured investor backing and raised $1.5 million shortly after launch, despite the business being little more than an early-stage concept. By the end of 2013, Airtasker had raised a total of $3.5 million and reached a valuation of around $10 million, laying the foundations for what would become one of Australia’s best-known online marketplaces.
The point is this: People often assume successful entrepreneurs possess some extraordinary ability to predict the future. They don’t. What they do possess is a willingness to test ideas, pay attention to feedback and, most importantly, adapt when circumstances change.
Bernadette Schwerdt, author of Secrets of the New Online Entrepreneurs, is the founder of the Australian School of Copywriting, a TEDx speaker, and an award-winning author and ghostwriter for Australia’s leading CEOs and entrepreneurs.
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