Smart50 rank: 36
Revenue: $28.54 million
Growth: 35.70%
Founders: Anthony McDonald, 45; Paul Daley, 59; Seth Watts, 30
Based: Victoria
Employees: 50
Industry: Information technology
Website: http://www.remg.com.au
Winner:
Vanguard Millionaire Entrepreneur Award
A position at the intersection of the fast growth online and property services sectors has helped drive the expansion of Victorian business Real Estate Media since it was founded in 2002.
The business runs an online portal that real estate agents can use to order and manage the advertising that home sellers purchase. Agents can do everything from buying online advertising to building and proof ads through the site.
More than $40 million in advertising was commissioned through the site in 2007, helping the business lift revenue by an annual average of 35.7% over the last two years to just over $28.5 million in 2007-08, compared with $22.5 million.
But as impressive as the Real Estate Media's online application is - it cost $4 million to develop - the firm had to learn the hard way that more than a snazzy website is required to win business in a competitive market.
"We naively assumed that creating a superior and faster service delivered via the internet would lead to immediate sales success," co-founder Anthony McDonald (pictured) says. "We quickly found out that our customers wanted their cake and to eat it too. Fortunately, the automation provided by our technology platform allowed us to deliver superior service 50% to 70% more cheaply than the incumbent suppliers."
