Australia’s Richest 250: Cyan Ta’eed’s true value

Cyan Ta’eed epitomises the new breed of entrepreneur for whom success is measured by more than money or power.

Cyan Ta'eed. Picture: Josh Robenstone

In the course of putting this year’s List together, one thing became clear. For the new generation, success is not about power. It’s not even really about money. It’s about a) acknowledging the hard work and the passion, but also the privilege that helped get you to the top; and b) giving back, in ways that make a difference.

Take the co-founder of Envato, and now Hey Tiger. Cyan Ta’eed was born in New York to “wonderful parents, and we moved to Sydney when I was three. I was lucky enough to get a fantastic education, but I finished school in 1999 and really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.”

How about being an entrepreneur? Well, the word had barely been invented, and there were very few women in tech. But Ta’eed enjoyed artistic endeavour, and she loved graphic design and also team building. And so, at the age of just 24 and with her husband Collis, she decided to start a website where designers and developers could sell assets and services to other designers and developers.

THE LIST: Australia’s Richest 250

“We assumed it would be a small side project but it grew very quickly, and 14 years later we have more than 600 employees and 10,000 people visiting one of our websites at any given time,” she says. Envato also exploded in value, and in theory Ta’eed could have just retired.

But she had an even better idea: make chocolate. Not just any chocolate – good, ethical chocolate. And so Hey Tiger was born.

“There are so many things I’m proud of from Envato,” she says. “But like someone who has released one hit song, you wonder if you could do it again.

“Hey Tiger is a completely different type of business. Chocolate is a product you want – maybe even crave – rather than need. Hey Tiger isn’t just about fulfilling that need, it’s about supporting workers in West Africa as well as Sydney. It’s also about building something sustainable and beautiful, with people who are stakeholders rather than shareholders.”

Ta’eed’s whole approach to business was different the second time around. She and her team started Envato in her parents’ garage. It was cash strapped because the co-founders were young, and it was also fly by the seat of your pants and then just hang on to the rocket when it took off.

With Hey Tiger, she spent a year developing the product and the packaging with her team. The company was built from scratch on sustainable foundations. It’s about making sure the cacao isn’t sourced via child labour. It’s about upholding environmental practices to ensure the viability of cacao farms. It’s about donating a portion of profits to support workers in West Africa and doing as much as possible by hand in Sydney.

“I think if I did nothing else other than make Hey Tiger a gold-standard social enterprise that people loved and independently supported impact work, I could retire tomorrow very happy,” she says – and not because Envato is valued at $625 million.

It’s because, she says, she would feel she had a made a difference.

“There’s a huge difference between Envato’s valuation and my day-to-day experience of the world,” Ta’eed says. “My biggest investment so far is starting Hey Tiger. That has been a huge undertaking, but one I feel is worth it.

“We take a very nice holiday every year and have paid off our house completely, but only upgraded our nine-year-old VW Golf to a Camry last year. Honestly, Envato’s growth has made me think about privilege and responsibility a lot. There are a million things that led to us being in this position, and most of them were thanks to privilege – everything from the parents I have to the country I grew up in, the education I received and the moment in time we launched Envato. If I’m that one-in-a-million person who runs a business like Envato, I’d better make sure we do our best to be responsible and helpful.”

In the early years of building a business, there’s no balance; it’s just go, go, go, and Ta’eed admits that balance “is tricky, and you do find it hard to navigate at times”. She is no longer in an operational role at Envato, and that means that she can be at home more often. On the downside, she actually sees less of one of her co-founders – her husband – at work.

“The reality is that I work hard and spend all my down time with my kids and husband,” she says. “Running businesses is stressful and a huge commitment. You’re often out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to the limit, so while it’s very fulfilling, it’s also very tiring. I practice self-care by going to the gym, I grow my own veggies to create some balance, and spend time with my family. There’s a lot I don’t do to be able to work like this and be an active parent, but that’s OK because I love it.”

The passion extends to her team. “My husband always laughs because when he visits Hey Tiger the team often ends a conversation by saying ‘love you’,” she says. “I think that comes from me, because I genuinely feel that way and tell them often. They work incredibly hard and are wonderful people, and I feel grateful that I get to work with them.

“I’ve discovered people either love working for me or hate it, because I will give you total responsibility and space to do your best work, but also to fail and learn. Certain people hate that because they want to be told what to do, but other people do their best work and really love it.

“I’ve gotten better at finding amazing people to work with and my hit rate is pretty good these days. The best way to describe what I do comes from one of the Game of Thrones directors, David Nutter. He said ‘I am the conductor of fine musicians. All I do is wave my arms around.’ I’ve been waving my arms around for 14 years and it’s turned out okay.”