29. Catalyze APAC
Catalyze APAC plans on growing from a consulting business to a training provider, specialising in decision thinking.
Revenue: $1.52 million
Growth: 93.25%
Founders: Paul Gordon (53)
Head Office: Sydney
Employees: 8
Industry: Consulting and strategy
Website: https://catalyzeapac.com
Year Founded: 2014
How it started
Paul Gordon started consulting business Catalyze APAC to help business owners with their most universal challenge — decision making.
Gordon tells SmartCompany teaching decision thinking — which Catalyze APAC specialises in — falls under three main categories: making decisions, assuring decision outcomes, and building decision capability.
“Decisions are so often based on emotion or reaction, when instead they could be thorough, clear and made with confidence. I wanted to bring the science of decisions to those who needed it most,” says Gordon.
Growth
While the business has almost doubled its yearly revenue between 2018-19 to 2020-21, Gordon notes the challenge has been managing cash flow between boom and bust periods.
To solve it, Catalyze APAC added training courses which can be offered all year, padding out the quieter months when larger government and private sector clients aren’t seeking out consultants.
Where to next?
With plans for hiring two salespeople, and an administrative assistant in the next 12 months, Gordon wants the team to be able to focus on client delivery and growth.
Beyond that, Gordon plans on taking their education efforts further.
“University courses in decision thinking are not new, but they are rare. In Australia, there is only one course offered at the University of Adelaide and Catalyze APAC believe that this should be rectified,” says Gordon.
Starting with smaller, single-day training courses, the plan is to grow into running a Catalyze APAC ‘Decision Thinking Institute’.
