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August 2006
Business Name: EDU Technology Solutions
Can you give me a little background on yourself?
Andrew Arcuri: I am currently in my final year of a combined Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of NSW. I am of Italian background, and I have two older sisters. I attended James Ruse Agricultural High School in Sydney’s North West. I started running my IT business with a friend of mine in 1998 when I was in Year 10. My friend ceased being a part of the business in 1999. After 1999, I operated as a sole-trader, supported by occasional sub-contracted staff as necessary. In 2002, I was awarded “Top Honours” in the Goldman Sachs Global Leadership Award. In late 2003, myself and my now business partner Amelia started investigating opportunities at growing my small IT business into a larger and more broadly based business. Our planning commenced in December 2003 and came to a head in April 2004 when our business, EDU Technology Solutions Pty Ltd was incorporated.
Amelia Schroter: I am currently in my penultimate year of a combined Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of NSW. I am originally from Tasmania, where I completed my Higher School Certificate at Guildford Young College in Hobart. I started my university degree at the University of Tasmania before transferring to the University of NSW when I moved to Sydney. My background is heavily influenced by the arts, as I have had extensive training, touring and performance experience with some of Australia’s leading musicians, choirs and theatre production companies. During my studies, I have worked in retail marketing and more recently, in the banking industry. As a sideline to full-time involvement with EDU Technology Solutions Pty Ltd and my full-time university studies, I also actively pursue my interest in property investment and renovation.
What is your business all about?
EDU Technology Solutions Pty Ltd is a business that has several discrete business units, all related to Information Technology. The business’s name “EDU” reflects our initial primary role of providing technical sales, support and service to government schools in NSW. Since then, the business has created a fully-fledged technical service division. We provide integrated technical services to home users, businesses and schools, including computer and laptop repairs and upgrades which usually occur in our Surry Hills workshop. We also provide higher level technical support and higher level networking services to businesses and schools. Finally, we offer all our services at our Service Centre, onsite or even remotely in certain situations. The service aspect of the business is the largest day-to-day component of the business. We also have a separate business unit that is dedicated to educational computer and IT security sales.
We are one of the largest suppliers of laptop trolleys and IT security equipment to schools around Australia, and have adopted a low-cost, high customer satisfaction model to dealing with our demanding educational customers. We also have three dedicated in-house software development teams that we have outsourced to teams that we have established in Romania and India. These teams allow us to internalise our software development and software business process development requirements – which have saved us approximately $60,000 in the last 12 months alone!
Finally, the newest aspect of the business is our specialised “Media Centre” retail outlet “Viva Media”. Viva Media is both an online, and shop front business. We have a website that allows our customers to browse, configure and purchase our cutting edge “Media Centres” online. We also have an exclusive showroom which allows our customers to come in store and have a first-hand look at what Media Centres are and how they work. This is currently the most rapidly growing aspect of the business, and we have the unique position of being the ONLY specialist “Media Centre” retailer in Australia at this time.
What motivated you to start your business?
Essentially, the motivation revolved around my own personal development. Establishing the business allowed me to be completely responsible for my own wealth and intellectual/entrepreneurial development. I always knew that this suited my “work hard” ethic, as the fruits of my labour would be entirely dependent on my own skill and attitude. If I was successful, it would be directly related to my effort, and if I was not successful, it would likewise be attributable to my skills, attitude or judgment.
Secondly, being “financially free” in the words of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” was another driving factor – being in business allows you to achieve this goal more directly. Finally, the other motivation was to get a crash course in business, operational management, HR management and marketing in a very practical environment.
How did you manage to secure the support and funding to establish your business?
All funding and support was brought in by both Amelia and I. We did not pay ourselves a wage until only about 9 months ago (and it has only become anywhere near consistent in the last 2 months!). We also started by doing everything ourselves, rather than outsourcing, and avoiding any long-term commitments or debts (which, incidentally, as a small business owner you can still be personally liable for even if the business is wound up and you cease trading!).
What I believe myself and Amelia are most proud of is that we achieved this without the assistance of a big windfall of any sort. The whole business was started with $5000, and many, many 18 hour days on both our parts!
Did you experience any challenges when setting up your business? If so, what did you learn from them?
Finance was enormous. We became extremely particular budgeters. Other challenges was (and are) hiring quality staff, and building a solid reputation. Of course, the fact that neither myself nor Amelia had prior business experience meant that we had to learn many things from scratch – such as detailed accounting and account keeping, legal issues in day-to-day business, marketing practices and approaches, recruitment and staff management, and of course, the little things like leasing commercial premises and organising appropriate insurance and other basic business elements that are often taken for granted (such as the ability to accept credit card payment and avoid customer fraud – which we have unfortunately been subject to on a few occasions).
What are some of the most valuable lessons you have learned?
Perhaps the most valuable lesson is the practical experience in starting and running a business, and every aspect of that business, from a position where there is initially nothing but an idea and some enthusiasm! We’ve also learned the value of dotting all your i’s and crossing all your t’s and being adequately insured. I have also learned that small business, in Australia, is perhaps one of the most under-represented bodies in our legal system. Employees have far more rights than small businesses in Australia, which is why many small businesses seek to employ contract labour, rather than taking on full time staff. Consumer protection law can also operate to assist vindictive or unreasonable consumers, where the business person has exhausted all avenues of being able to assist the consumer.
What have you had to sacrifice and what have you gained from the experience thus far?
We have had to sacrifice about 2 years worth of sanity, not to mention income and a social life! The business has been incredibly demanding on both of us, and we have had to sacrifice a lot of income and a (relatively) stress-free lifestyle to make the business what it is today. The experience we have gained, as I mentioned above, has been invaluable.
Not only have we gained an invaluable degree of practical experience in corporate operations and entrepreneurialism, but we have also learned a variety of skills and attitudes that has made us highly regarded to potential external employers in the general business community, especially in the professional services industries (where our university education has prepared us for on the theoretical level).
What do you think was important for you to be successful with the business?
It was extremely important for us to learn to prioritise our goals, our time and our commitments. Only with such planning can you squeeze enough hours out of the day to get everything done! The other important thing, we have discovered more recently, is the need for us to get away (both mentally and physically) from the business on a regular basis. We now strictly avoid the business on weekends, and try to avoid working on it after hours. We find that we are more productive, and overall, more content with ourselves because of this.
Do you consider your business to be your biggest personal achievement to date?
Overall, if you aggregate all the small achievements throughout the last two years of running the business, then in sum, it is absolutely our biggest personal achievement at this point. Achieving a range of milestones, from quantitative (turnover, profit, growth etc) to qualitative (customer satisfaction, community and professional recognition, the self-fulfillment associated with building something large from not much at all), are excellent in and of themselves, but combining them makes this one of the most satisfying, yet most challenging personal achievements to date.
What do you think it takes to be successful?
Success is definitely a function of several key elements. While it is commonly known that you need to have the right attitude, and you need to work hard (it’s not enough if you simply work “smart” but are a sloth!), it is definitely an advantage to be intellectually sound and be able to operate logically in a reasoned process.
There is a fairly loose rule in business: “80% of the work in 20% of the time”. Adhering to this rule allows you to make preliminary decisions that are usually right, or very close to being right, if you focus on the key elements or factors influencing that decision. In life, (as well as in business), this rule helps ensure that you don’t miss an opportunity because you weren’t quick enough to see its intrinsic value, and act on it. In small businesses especially, where you need to make many decisions each and every day, it is impossible to determine the strengths, weaknesses, risks and costs associated with each decision to an exact degree, all of the time. You need to be “pretty close to the mark” and be able to get to that decision extremely quickly. The 80/20 rule lets you achieve this! I think this is one thing that is necessary to be successful.
If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything differently?
Absolutely. We would focus immediately on developing activities and processes in the business that bring value to the business. One thing that let us down in the very early stages of the business was that we spent a lot of time and effort on things that were not necessarily “Value-adding” to the business. This is part of the reason why, over the last 12 months, we have been able to greatly decrease our workload, whilst simultaneously greatly increasing our revenue and profitability.
What advice could you provide for other young people interested in starting their own business?
Perhaps one of the biggest pieces of advice for new business people, is to focus on what “adds value” to your business. On occasion, we lose sight of the bigger picture of the business and its “valuable” activities, and get caught up in insignificant details. We also have found value in leaving our pride at the door, when we start a new day. There are many things that can and do happen on a daily basis that can make one question his or her competence, and the most important thing to remember is not to take a defeat personally. Empathy for your staff, your suppliers, your clients/customers and your partners will make the process more rewarding, less stressful, and in fact, more profitable!
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