12. Gravity

Revenue: $3.4 million
Growth: 293.1%
Founders: Jacqueline Esdaile, 34, Sergio Pires, 34
Head office: Sydney, NSW
Year founded: 2014
employees: 5
Industry: Real Estate and property
Website: www.gravitycoworking.com.au

Gravity is a co-working space housing startups and small businesses in CBD locations across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, with a focus on providing luxury, centrally-located spaces for budding entrepreneurs and SMEs.

Jacqueline Esdaile, who co-founded the business with Sergio Pires, says she was inspired to create working spaces that are “aspirational for our members, that allowed them to focus on growing their business in a workplace environment that they could be proud of”.

Founded in 2014, Gravity has offices in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney and it turned over revenue of $3.4 million last financial year — but the road to reaching a profit wasn’t always easy.

“The most challenging part was educating people on what co-working is and its benefits,” Esdaile says.

“When we started our business, it was still a new concept and so helping growing businesses understand just how we could save them money and time on administration, as well as unburden them from the cost of a lease and fit out was challenging.”

“We learnt that experience trumps words, and showing people what we were offering was the best way to attract them.”

Gravity has taken on two new team members in the last year to grow to a team of five, and has “co-working domination” in its future sights, with Esdaile saying she wants to “triple our footprint” in the next two years.

The co-working business plans to move into Asia next, and has its eye on expats working in Singapore, Hong Kong, and China; a market Esdaile believes would be eager to get behind an Australian-run co-working space.

“Co-working is becoming more than just offering a desk and Wi-Fi for members; it is becoming about the business experience as a whole — how can they grow their business, how can we support them, how can we help them broaden their network and how can we help with ongoing education within their business field,” she says. 

Gravity recently had Naomi Simson come on board as its entrepreneur-in-residence, which saw the Shark Tank investor and Red Balloon founder provided workshops, one-on-one sessions and advice for Gravity space members for a three-month period.

“The programme generated 1000s of followers on social media and we had a surge in the take up of our co-working memberships. The publicity and exposure for the brand was invaluable,”  Esdaile says, observing the program generated “a huge amount of brand loyalty from our members” and was “a huge success for the business”.