Lessons from my first year in business

Jo Burston

Business: Job Capital

In a nutshell: StartupSmart Awards winner that handles the all-round tax affairs of independent contractors.

Established: 2006

Revenue: $9.1 million

I started Job Capital knowing there were some pretty heavy hitters up against me from the get-go.

These businesses were turning over millions of dollars. Yet I still knew I would succeed.

As Job Capital was building market share, forming quality relationships and delivering outstanding customer service to gain some sales momentum, the big guys hit the GFC and started to scale down, strip and bleed.

So the competition barrier was softened substantially. I was hiring great people while they were letting go of them.

My biggest barrier in many ways was only myself. Working alone and with an investor that wanted sales reported yesterday, was on my back every other moment about where the next sale was coming from and the pressure was on from day one to deliver results and his return as fast as I could.

He stumped up a couple of hundred grand (unbelievable in this day and age), I took $100k of that in my first year as salary (I had come off a salary much, much higher in corporate and had a pretty huge mortgage).

I literally worked 24/7 to get as much done every day as I could. I pulled together all my own marketing, contracts, sales material, proposals and went off the sell it to the world.

There were several hundred times when I thought “what am I doing?” but then the ultimate optimist and my spirit was always kicking in and replying “because you love what you do and you are very good at it, now just get on with today because another challenge is only minutes away”.

I had to ensure my mind frame was always positive and optimistic and that meant not looking at the competition very often, instead sticking to my knitting and making my own decisions about how I would effect change in my industry and business.

Within 2.5 years I had repaid my investor and bought back all of the company equity. I knew I wanted to own the company and have total control.

To start it I had to give a lot away, including control, strategy decisions, location of the business (I was from Sydney starting in Melbourne) and in a lot of ways the ultimate decisions.

However, over time my investor realised my potential and could see after making lots of errors in judgment that was capable of running the entire business.

Within the second year I grew the company by 50%, year three by 181% and last year another 171%. Having that pressure to return for an investor from day one proved my biggest challenge and also my greatest strength in the long run because my self-expectation was so incredibly high.

It still is today and I instil that very culture to my team.

I didn’t know how to read a balance sheet or a P/L properly when I started the business. I was sales-focused – all I ever cared about was top line as I was traditionally remunerated by this.

I spent hours learning to not just read the sheet, but read the book and worked out the value of this skill when I needed it most.

Cash was the focus for me and I knew without plenty of it running through the machines the cogs wouldn’t work.

I knew the BS, sales; collections and cash were the fundamentals. Now I know my financial story off the top of my head. I can’t imagine not knowing it.

My biggest surprises were bad news or threats out of my control. My Dad was diagnosed as terminally ill in my first year of business.

This challenge became my biggest inspiration and I still refer to his words of wisdom to make fair, logical decisions with compassion and generosity of spirit when required.

My tips:

1. Always know who your first customer is – I have started four companies now and all were started because I knew who my first customer was going to be.
2. If you can’t read and understand financials and you don’t know how to interpret a balance sheet – learn today.
3. Find a mentor you respect and trust – my mentor was my investor. I felt like I did the best hands on MBA possible by experiencing every part of business from the ground up in my start-up.
4. Surround yourself with positive people – your support structure is valuable and necessary.
5. I don’t think you can truly learn how to make money until you have lost money – I have done both and I understand and respect money, but not as much as I respect my people and customers.
6. Hire people around you that are far better at what you do than you are – then empower them to do things they have never done before and let them own the wins.

You can read a full StartupSmart profile of Job Capital by clicking here.