Rodney Michail
Meet your new competition, Australia’s Fastest Growing Start-Ups, which were identified last night at StartupSmart’s third annual awards.
This year’s batch of start-ups is more successful than ever with combined revenue of $129 million compared to $115.6 million last year.
The awards also attracted an 83% increase in entries this year reflecting a growing maturity and depth to Australia’s start-up scene.
The overall winner last night was Queensland business 1800Approved, which was named Australia’s Fastest Growing Start-up in the awards sponsored by DFK Australia & New Zealand.
This financial brokerage business racked up a stunning $20 million revenue in its first four years.
1800Approved was founded by Rodney Michail in 2009 and provides finance on everything from homes to motorboats.
Michail was a car dealer when he came up with the idea after finding that the finance providers he dealt with weren’t very efficient and had a limited scope.
Noticing that his customers were complaining regularly about the service they were getting, he decided he could do better himself.
After initially starting brokering for the car sector (this still makes up 30% of 1800Approved’s business) the start-up began to systematically invade other industries in order to broaden its reach
“We are very versatile business, we have forecasted change very well,” says Angelo Lauro, who joined Michail as a business partner more than two years ago.
“We moved into bikes, then marine and commercial – we can do anything from a $5,000 loan to a current deal which is with a group of private lenders for $600 million.”
Eight other individual categories also saw notable winners, including Boardcave.com, which won the Best Start-up Product award.
The site, set up by Queensland surfers Ryan Mets and Chris Greben, allows users to customise their surfboards before purchasing them, allowing manufacturers in their industry an easy path to the ever-increasing online market.
Meanwhile, InsideTrak, created by Mike Larsen, took out the Best Online Strategy award. The innovative site allows employees to rate their bosses, with job seekers able to get a TripAdvisor-style insight into their new workplaces.
The start-ups are starting young as well.
Nineteen-year-old Ash Davies won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for his work on Tablo Publishing, a venture that allows authors an easy way to publish their books digitally.
It’s all good news for Australia’s start-up scene and shows that entrepreneurship is alive and well amongst another generation of Australians.
But be warned, these start-ups have their eye on existing SMEs.
Meet the top 5
1800Approved
- Founders: Rodney Michail, Angelo Lauro
- Revenue: $20,000,000
- Started: 2009
- Head Office: Queensland
- Employees: 17
- Industry: Finance and insurance
- Website: www.1800approved.com.au