First jobs of Melbourne’s most successful entrepreneurs
Before they were heading up global tech companies and launching iconic labels, Melbourne’s most successful people were working for peanuts in a part-time job. Here’s where they got a start.
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In business, there are many pathways to success, and it all starts with that formative first job.
Before they were heading up global tech companies and launching iconic labels, Melbourne’s most successful entrepreneurs were, like most of us, working for peanuts in a part-time job.
From babysitter to bike courier, find out how some of the biggest names in business worked their way up from humble beginnings.
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Jules Lund
Presenter and founder of TRIBE
Television and radio host turned tech entrepreneur Jules Lund made his name as the bleached-blond larrikin jet setting all over the world for travel series Getaway, and it was his first retail job that inspired him to reach for the peroxide.
“I was obsessed with [surf shop] Jetty Surf at Chadstone, and for years I’d go in there and hassle them for a job,” Lund says.
“I loved how cool the staff were and it was a genuine dream of mine to work there, despite never having surfed in my life.”
Persistence paid off for the teenager, who finally landed a gig as a casual sales assistant, and bleached his hair to look the part.
“I took that job so seriously, I remember the stockroom was looking a bit dirty so I turned up to one shift with mum’s dustbuster and gave the place a once-over.”
This stubborn work ethic carried him through a successful career in television and then radio, turning up well before dawn and sticking around late into the afternoon, well after the breakfast shift had knocked off for the day.
Persistence has also proven pivotal in launching tech start-up TRIBE, a content marketing platform that connects influencers directly with brands and agencies to create content campaigns. Since 2015, TRIBE has facilitated close to 10,000 campaigns and worked with top brands including Cannon, Ikea, Vegemite and Land Rover.
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Abigail Forsyth
Co-founder and managing director of KeepCup
When an 11-year-old Abigail Forsyth fronted up to her dad’s office to sell homemade sandwiches during the school holidays, her main concern was making enough money to buy a pair of rollerskates.
Fast forward two decades and as the co-founder of a successful chain of sandwich shops in Melbourne with brother Jamie, she became increasingly troubled by the amount of waste the business was generating, particularly with disposable coffee cups.
KeepCup, the world’s first barista standard reusable coffee cup, was her answer.
Over the last ten years, KeepCup estimates it has diverted a whopping 3.5 billion disposable cups from landfill in more than 65 countries, so it might surprise some to learn that this eco entrepreneur’s first ‘proper’ job was in a law firm.
“I didn’t particularly like my law degree, but I worked for a guy that I had enormous respect for — very detail oriented, very considered, very thorough — and quite different to me,” she says.
“I’m still not really that way inclined but observing him and the way he did things made me see the value of having people like that on your team.”
Ruslan Kogan
Founder and CEO of Kogan.com
The founder of online retail giant Kogan inherited a keen entrepreneurial spirit from his migrant parents, who moved the family from communist Belarus to Melbourne in 1989 with just $90.
According to his website, Kogan grew up in housing commission flats in Melbourne’s south east and developed an interest in technology at the age of nine, scouring a computer swap meet at Caulfield Town Hall for parts to build his first computer.
The following year, he started his first business collecting stray golf balls from nearby Elsternwick golf course, cleaning them and repacking them in egg cartons to sell to weekend golfers.
A car wash service, mobile phone repair business and web design agency kept him busy throughout secondary school, followed by stints in IT at Bosch and General Electric while studying at Monash University.
Ruslan founded Kogan.com in 2006 when he was 23, launching the business from his parents’ garage with two Kogan-branded LCD televisions. Today, the online marketplace sells more than 70,000 products — including golf balls — and reported a profit of $14.11 million in 2018.
Tom Amos
Co-founder and CEO of Sidekicker
Online temporary staffing platform Sidekicker was born of founders Tom Amos’ and Jacqui Bull’s vision that the future of work must be flexible, a realisation Amos came to when reflecting on his first jobs in retail.
“My very first job was as a store hand at Golf Works — as a young golfer, this was a really awesome job,” he says.
“During my younger years in retail, I was always concerned that I was going to lose my job if I needed to swap a shift to study for my exams or head over to Europe for a few weeks.”
Amos completed his commerce degree and worked at Deloitte before teaming up with Bull to develop the platform, which lets businesses hire temporary workers for business administration, event organisation or food service duties all over Australia.
Sidekicker now has more than 11,000 ‘sidekicks’ vying for around 10,000 jobs each month for the likes of Uber, Airbnb and Youfoodz.
“It’s exciting now when talking to our workers how much they love the flexibility that Sidekicker provides them, knowing that they can work as much or as little as they need to.”
Amos says working in retail also taught him the value of knowing the ins and outs of what you are selling.
“Product knowledge when you are in a customer facing role is integral to success. You must know your product equal to or better than your customer to gain their respect,” he says.
And Sidekicker has certainly got the respect of the business world, backed by online jobs classifieds heavyweight SEEK since 2016.
Daniel Flynn
Co-founder and Managing Director of Thankyou
Daniel Flynn is one half at the helm of Australian social enterprise Thankyou, but before he was harnessing consumer purchasing power to eradicate global poverty, he was flipping burgers under the golden arches.
“My first ‘official’ job was at McDonald’s, but throughout my childhood, I was always running little businesses — I sold gobstoppers and pet yabbies from my school locker, washed cars and painted house numbers on people’s kerb sides,” he says.
Flynn discovered that while the school canteen did not appreciate a student undercutting their profits, and the market for kerb side number painting was extremely small, all ideas are worth investigating.
“I’ve always been one to want to test a theory; to this day I still ask ‘but what if it works?’ — that’s the basis for how Thankyou started and continues to take on new ground.”
Flynn was only 19 when, struck by global poverty and excessive consumer spending, he teamed up with now wife and best mate to found a social enterprise that donated 100% of profits from sales of its bottled water to fund access to clean water around the world.
That was in 2008. A decade later, Thankyou has grown to over 55 products, from personal care products to nappies and baby care, available in 5,500 outlets Australia-wide, including hard-won spots on the shelves of Coles and Woolworths.
“[I learnt] that the onus is on me to get people on board with an idea,” Flynn says.
“As a kid, and even in the early years of Thankyou, I’d get frustrated when people didn’t catch onto the vision or see what I did.
“I learnt that it’s my responsibility to get buy-in from people and not get dismayed when they didn’t get it, rather try a different approach.”
Carolyn Creswell
Founder of Carman’s Fine Foods
If you ever needed proof that a humble babysitting gig can lead to bigger and better things, just look at Carman’s Fine Foods founder Carolyn Creswell.
The Melbourne muesli mogul has built Carman’s into a $100 million business distributed in more than 30 countries, but said it was a part-time job at the company in its early days that ignited her entrepreneurial spirit.
“I used to babysit for the company’s owners, then went to work there while I was at uni,” she told The Australian. “When they decided to sell, my job was at risk. I thought, why couldn’t I buy the business and keep it going?”
Creswell teamed up with a partner in 1992 to buy the struggling company for $1000 each. Two years later, she bought her partner out, and slowly built the brand from the ground up, fighting for placement on supermarket shelves and expanding the product range to include muesli bars and snacks. She was named Telstra Business Woman of the Year in 2013 and is worth a reported $57 million.
Naomi Simson
Founder of RedBalloon and Shark Tank Australia investor
Before she founded Australia’s largest online experience gift retailer, and coached budding entrepreneurs to sink or swim as a judge on TV’s Shark Tank, Naomi Simson landed her first job as a Christmas casual at her local toy store at the age of 14.
“My first pay check came in a little white envelope (I still have it) — $5.12 for seven hours work as a shop assistant,” she wrote in a blog post.
“After work on that Friday night I had dinner with my new co-workers; I had the cheapest thing on the menu — spaghetti — which set me back $12, or more than two weeks’ wages.”
Simson went on to say that her first job taught her the value of money and that she began to view purchases in terms of how many hours she had to work to pay for them.
She also said she learnt the importance of employers building a foundation of trust with their employees, after being unceremoniously fired once the Christmas rush was over.
“I was sad, not only did I like my colleagues, but I thought I was really good at my job. I was surprised that no one seemed to notice how much I sold or how much effort I put in.”
“Trust is the very premise of all relationships — and the first employment relationship is critical.”
Simson went on to work in corporate marketing at companies like IBM, KPMG and Ansett Australia, before launching RedBalloon from her lounge room in 2001, growing the tiny start-up into a booming tech giant on track to deliver five million experiences by 2020.
Perhaps drawing on those early experiences as an employee, she recently ventured into the staff incentive space with Redii.com, a platform that allows businesses to facilitate employee rewards and recognition programs.
Lola Berry
Nutritionist and author
When it comes to healthy lifestyle habits, Australian nutritionist and author Lola Berry certainly practices what she preaches.
The 33-year-old wellness warrior has crafted a reputation as “the Steve Irwin of vegetables”, and says she learned important lessons from her first job in retail at the age of 18.
“I worked in a fashion store Stevie in Greville Street, which was known for its iconic ‘80s inspired clothes — this acid wash jeans and fluoro tops,” she says.
“The owner and creator, Lyndon designed everything out the back the store, everything was manufactured in Melbourne and I got to see what it really took to build a dream from an idea in your mind and making it a reality.”
It was a summer detox that sparked this self-confessed former party girl’s interest in superfoods and the impact of diet on overall health and wellbeing, and she enrolled in a Bachelor of Health Science, majoring in nutritional medicine.
Just over a decade later, Berry has 10 best-selling recipe books and fitness guides to her name, a popular web series, as well as a slew of regular TV and radio appearances.
She pays tribute to her first boss for teaching her self-belief and drive.
“In the interview for the job he said ‘you will be a walking billboard for the company, so I want to you live and breathe it’, which I loved,” she said.
“I am the same now. I live and breathe what I write about in my books.”