BRW Young Rich List: Dave Greiner on how to succeed and be a multi-millionaire

SO YOU want to strike it rich and join the elite of Australia’s young guns? Dave Greiner, third on this year’s list, explains how it’s done.

DAVE Greiner and Ben Richardson were debutantes on the BRW Young Rich List this year.

That in itself is nothing fresh — new blood is injected onto the list every year — but the fact the pair debuted in the third and fourth spots is indicative of the kind of year Mr Greiner and Mr Richardson have just enjoyed.

The company the duo founded in 2004, technology marketing firm Campaign Monitor, banked a $US250 million investment in April from capital firm Insight Venture Partners. That’s lifted Mr Greiner and Mr Richardson’s combined worth to $500 million, according to BRW. They’re only behind fellow tech-heads, Atlassian founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar who boast $2.1 billion.

Friends since they were five-year olds, their company was born out of a web design business the pair launched when they were university students. Frustrated by the lack of good email marketing platforms for their own business, the guys started to build Campaign Monitor.

Officially launched in 2004, Campaign Monitor has been profitable from the get-go and now sends over 1.5 billion emails a month. According to BRW, the company generated $57 million in revenue in the last financial year.

Here, Mr Greiner shares with news.com.au just what it takes to make it onto BRW’s Young Rich List.

How do you get the business community to take you seriously when you’re just a couple of young upstarts?

The beauty of the internet is that you can be two kids working out of a spare room and command just as much attention as a Fortune 500. It’s all about solving people’s problems. If you can do that well, you’ll be taken seriously by default.

Mr Greiner with his workmates.

Being a young upstart is a mixed bag. You can move incredibly fast, but you have less resources than most. For us, the key was to focus on doing one thing really well for one particular group of people. Sweat all the details, give them a great experience from start to finish, and they’ll soon become your biggest fans.

What are three things every young entrepreneur needs to know when they’re starting out?

1. Don’t make excuses, start building something right now. Ideas are worthless unless they’re executed.

2. Never be afraid to charge for your product from day one. If nobody is prepared to pay for it, it’s probably not solving an important problem anyway.

3. Don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re starting a business to give you more freedom to do what you enjoy in life. Don’t let it consume the very thing you’re aiming to improve.

What was the biggest unexpected challenge you faced when you first started?

From day one we knew Campaign Monitor had to be a global product to succeed. Because of that, it was important we could set our prices and charge customers in US dollars. However, getting the merchant facilities to support this was a huge challenge for us. Remember, this was 2004 and the big banks basically ignored anyone unless they were a very large business with a strong trading history. Thankfully, today it takes minutes instead of months to set this up, but it was a hugely frustrating experience when we were first getting started.

The Campaign Monitor team.

Who gave you the best advice at the beginning? And what was it?

In the early days there was one particular software entrepreneur called Eric Sink who was very influential on how we built the business. He was a big advocate for focusing on a niche — doing one thing really well. He summed it up as “try and please everybody, and you’ll end up pleasing nobody” and that mantra has served us incredibly well over the years.

Was it easy or hard to make that first million? And how did you feel when you did?

It certainly wasn’t easy, we’d been heads down for quite a few years before that milestone. Of course, I was completely blown away at the time. To be honest I’m still pinching myself on a daily basis.

Have relationships with your friends changed with your increasing wealth?

I think I’ve been very lucky here. My best mates are the same today as they were 20 years ago, and it’s very important to me that it stays that way. They don’t let me get away with anything, which is exactly how it should be.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I think a lot of it has to do with the type of person you were before you had some success. Humility goes a long way.

What does it feel like to be so high on the BRW list?

Being on the list itself was certainly never a goal of mine — in fact if I had a choice I wouldn’t be on it at all. I don’t really think of “making it” as a destination I’m shooting for, that takes all the fun out of the journey, and what am I going to do when I get there anyway?

Originally published as BRW Young Rich List: Dave Greiner on how to succeed and be a multi-millionaire