The inspirational Smart50

My mind is still buzzing. Last night we held our SmartCompany Smart50 entrepreneur awards. It is always a stimulating night when entrepreneurs from 50 companies get together, have a few drinks and celebrate their success.

But after a few drinks some of them get quite reflective. Unless one has experienced the first two to three years of building their own business, it is hard to understand how stressful and difficult it can be. On average the companies in the Smart50 are six years old and it is still extremely hard, especially as many of the them are now transitioning to medium or even large businesses which brings its own pressures.

The stories they tell about those early years remind everyone that these people are the unsung heroes of the business community.

The founders of VroomVroomVroom told us that staff went without pay for a month when starting up. Out of desperation a deal was signed to sell half the company at a discounted price. Luckily the deal fell through, cash flowed and last night they took 27th place on the Smart50 list.

Helen Logas who runs Travelcorp recounts that her second in charge took 40% of the business, walked out the door and took three staff as well. While being emotionally devastated she had to rebuild the business which now has $6 million revenue and she took 38th place.

IT Leaders Group had a large client who suddenly got into trouble and owed their company a lot of money. They had spent it so fast that IT Leader’s existing credit control systems hadn’t picked it up. It was very stressful for a while and founder Scott Jones says he wasn’t paying attention. But it worked out ok and they are 49th on our list.

But I love this from the founder from matesrates. When asked about his near death experience Gerry Alleaume says every day is a challenge, especially when you consider that the decisions you make today not only affect you but affect all your staff.

And this from AWR chartered accountants Adrian Raftery. “Having experienced the passing of family members (father and daughter) I can tell you there is nothing in business close to a near death experience. Yes some things are important but a lot of perspective of the big picture is required.”

In the next few weeks we will running more stories from our Smart50. But let me just thank the amazing people that made the Smart50 possible. Thanks to our sponsor Westpac. There were a lot of entrepreneurs in the room who were talking to Westpac business bakers.

Thanks to the Victorian Government for holding the event. I will never forget the look on the face of Minister for Small Business, Joe Helper, when told that the entrepreneurs in the room had created 1,000 jobs just in the past year. He looked around the room with astonishment.

But most of all thank you to a wonderful SmartCompany team: James Thomson, our very talented editor has done a great job of collecting the research and then working with myself and Kosmas Smyrnios of RMIT to judge the winners and then oversee the editorial. Campbell Corser, head of business development and sales and marketing manager Amelie Mills did a great job organising the event along with Georgina Luck from the Victorian Government.

Thanks to Emma Krieger for great subbing and production and our terrific sales team led by Oliver Hinton and Steve Murray.

Finally, thank you to all those inspiring entrepreneurs for sharing their stories and their journey!