Awesome story about an emerging Queensland success story. My favorite take out is : Don’t let a lack of qualifications stop you Duncan started the company at the age of 17 and was a self-taught programmer. afr/Page/Uuid/f49ea25c-2c24-11e4-8f12-23a5f29dec04 Tech whiz takes the road less travelled Ben Duncan ... ‘We would stay somewhere beautiful and set up shop for a week. I’d get my laptop out and write some code or design some ideas and feed that back to the office guys.’ FIONA SMITH The trouble with being an entrepreneurial wunderkind is that while you are slaving away turning your start-up into the “next big thing”, all your friends are having fun. The prodigy is sleeping on the office couch, mainlining coffee and schmoozing potential customers. Meanwhile, the only “big breaks” chased by their former high school classmates are the ones that crash onto the sand in Lombok. It seems that our youngest entrepreneurs have to put off the joys of youth until they are successful enough to appoint a chief executive and take a belated gap year – although, by then, they can afford to do it in style. This might have been the case for Ben Duncan, too, but the founder of technology company Atmail found a Gen-Y solution to the age-old problem. With the help of some technology, he has twice taken a year to go exploring Australia, running the business and writing code “on the road”. The first time he went with friends in a converted Land Rover, the second time he was joined by his then girlfriend. For that second trip, four years ago, his mobile office was his four-wheel-drive and a laptop. Back at the office on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast were 18 employees. “A year on the road, 30,000 kilometres, lots of conference calls and writing code and being fully creative out in the desert and in bush. It was fantastic,” says Duncan, who founded the company as a 17-year-old. “We had some really good people at the office and things ticked along. My journey for the year was helping to create the next Atmail and be more creative and think about our future products.” His Land Rover Defender was fitted out with a high-gain antenna for Telstra Mobile, a solar panel on the roof, camping gear, a long-range fuel tank. “We would stay somewhere beautiful and set up shop for a week. I’d get my laptop out and write some code or design some ideas and feed that back to the office guys, who would keep running with it. I’d be doing conference calls with clients while in the middle of nowhere, and they would have no idea,” says Duncan. This is not running a business at “arm’s length”. It is a lot further than that, but Duncan says the travel was not an issue. New way of doing things “I think it illustrates the new economy: that new way of doing things. You don’t have to subscribe to the normal nine-to-five office job and live in a city, or a box. “We’ve got this awesome country. We can work online; we can conduct business internationally from the back of a four-wheel-drive in the middle of nowhere. “I don’t think there is a massive difference if I worked from there or from the office. If anything, I was probably happier [working remotely] – in terms of work, creativity and passion.” Duncan, 33, has just returned from two months’ long-service leave in Barcelona and Finland. Earlier this year, he stepped down from leading the company and appointed his chief operating officer, Zach Johnson, as chief executive Duncan will continue to work in a technology-focused role as chief technology officer and sits on the board of the company. “We were sitting on a whole stack of potential with Atmail. We had been kind of under the radar for a long time and we were starting to win bigger contracts and clients in the US and Japan,” he explains. Atmail provides the technology to the email service offered by companies such as Optus and iiNet. BRW reported in April that it was on target for $4 million in revenue last financial year and has stated a goal of reaching $50 million in revenue within the next five years. “We’ve had pretty steady organic growth since I started [15 years ago],” says Duncan. “I chose to run Atmail as a lifestyle business to begin with. The drive was to grow a sustainable business, bit by bit, where there was no immediate rush or a lot of risk.” Investment from Starfish Ventures As the business grew, Duncan realised he would have to make changes to take it to “the next level” and he took a $2 million investment from Starfish Ventures in 2012. Duncan retains 54 per cent of the business. He says the injection of funds gives the company more energy, staff and publicity, which has boosted business in the US. Atmail grew its revenue by 30 per cent over the past financial year. “Our challenge for this financial year is to double our revenue again.” The company now has 33 employees and is in the process of opening a sales office in Santa Monica, California. “Quite a lot of our customers are in the US and we really want to amp that up this financial year,” Duncan says. Atmail has also opened a second office 100 metres away from its existing premises in Peregian Beach in Queensland (south of Noosa) just for software engineers and developers. “I live in Peregian as well. I really like living and working in the same village. The lifestyle here is amazing. I can walk to work along the beach, go for a surf in the morning or after work. The weather is fantastic. There’s no commute. A lot of our staff live really close to Peregian or they commute 20 or 30 minutes max,” Duncan says. Duncan is now planning another year around Australia – this time on a boat. “Just with some satellite internet, a lifeboat ... that would be awesome.” How long could he be away and keep the business running? “I’d say almost indefinitely, so long as the business is sound. If you have a really good team back at base, who can show up, you can work remotely.” Takeouts ■Get a good team behind you Technology should allow you to work from anywhere and who cares if you are in the middle of a rainforest? But you need people to “keep the home fires burning”. ■Don’t let a lack of qualifications stop you Duncan started the company at the age of 17 and was a self-taught programmer. ■ Start small When he began, Duncan was just looking to support himself with the business and was able to grow it for its first 13 years without having to look for external investment. ■ Get good advice Duncan sought out mentors, including his father, a real estate agent. ■ Recognise when you need to take it to the next level When Duncan returned from his second sojourn, he decided he was ready to let the business achieve its potential and took a $2million investment in order to do that. ■ Be prepared to step back Duncan enjoys the technical side of the business and promoted his chief operating officer to take the reins of its expansion. ■ Embed the freedom The beachside location helps create a great work environment, but the company also promises minimal meetings and encourages physical activities, such as Tough Mudder events. FS
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 21:16:56 +0000
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