Entrepreneur start-up: From disaster to profit
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Last Updated: Tuesday, 5 February 2008
By Amanda Gome
Lisa Messenger, in her mid 30s, went from running a basketcase of a business to running a profitable fast growing company in just a few years. But it involved radical changes to her business, strategy and her attitude.
She tells Amanda Gome about her new company Messenger Publishing, and how her publishing business is taking advantage of the same trends driving social networking sites.
Amanda Gome: You were in your early 30s when you started your own business. I imagine you could have earned a heap in a marketing role at a big corporate. So why leave?
Lisa Messenger: I was earning about $90,000. But I think I was Gen-Y before the expression was coined. Even when I was working for others I wanted to be the managing director or have equity in my own company. My father ran his own business. But when I started my own sponsorship agency in 2001 it was the only time I ever say him cry. I think my grandfather was my inspiration. He is a politician (John Fuller) who is aged 90 and is still very busy networking, going to one or two breakfasts a day.
So what was the impetus to start your own business?
A guy was promoted over me. So I essentially set up in opposition. I started a sponsorship agency with $4000, and in six weeks I had moved into offices and taken on my first staff member. Naivety was a great thing. I didn’t have time to be scared and I was so excited to have my own business.
What was the business?
Getting sponsorship for arts and entertainment clients. I thought laterally about how I could leverage relationships. So I would say to artists ‘I will get you $200,000 and I will come up with the sponsor and the benefits for the sponsor’. Benefits might include access to IP, corporate tickets to events, brand exposure.
So what went wrong?
We started just after 11 September (2001) and corporates wanted safer bets. I also lost my focus. I began writing for marketing magazines and industry magazines about sponsorship and marketing. I also got lots of calls from small businesses asking for help, so suddenly I was all things to everyone. I was getting revenue of about $50,000 paying for an office and a staff member on about $30,000 and not paying myself anything.
So you didn’t get business?
No; I was passionate about helping others and I kept saying money is not important, passion is.
That’s not sustainable.
No. Fortunately three and a half years ago I got fed up. I went on a spiritual retreat for eight days and decided to take a different path. I love writing, so I decided to write a book Happiness Is. It’s a compilation of thoughts from 300 Australians about what makes them happy. It took five months from the decision to the printing.
How did you pay for it?
I didn’t have money to publish the book, but I have always been a big thinker. So I approached corporate sponsors like Mercedes, Macquarie Bank whom I had relationships with. I also cold called companies like Officeworks and Clinique. I sent Officeworks a copy of Happiness Is and they said thanks we’ll have 8000. They said their mantra is to surprise and delight customers and it would make a great thank you to PAs who, in the main, buy the stationary.
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