Start-Up Rank: 21
Revenue: $1,500,000
Founder(s): Rupert Imhoff
Industry: Telecommunications
Head Office: Victoria
Employees: 4 full-time and 93 part-time
Website: www.199buddy.com
When Rupert Imhoff turned 21, his parents offered him a choice of birthday present: a car or $5,000 in cash. He took the cash, bought some shares, sold them at a profit eight months later and started his first business - premium mobile phone service, 199BUDDY.
The idea behind the company is simple. Users text in a question on any subject (everything from the best way to cook calamari to the height of the Great Pyramid) and 199BUDDY's team does their best to find the answer as quickly as possible.
Imhoff brought the idea to Australia from Britain, but his execution was perfect. Within four weeks he was making $1,000 a day in profit and the media was raving about his new service.
But like many young entrepreneurs, Imhoff has found it hard to build a good team.
"It was extremely difficult going from a one man operation to a fifty man operation within four weeks...The company exceeded all expectations as it began growing more rapidly than I could initially manage."
Today 199BUDDY has operations in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Britain and Ireland and is turning over $1.5 million a year.
"I have learnt a great deal about company operations, investing, work relationships and money in general. Definitely learnt more than a commerce degree could ever teach me!" Imhoff says.
"It's been a lot of fun as well. I've always seen myself as a 'work-from-home with my dog at my feet, doing my own thing', sort of person."
And if the boss gets to work from home, then Imhoff believes the employees should have the same benefit - currently all of Buddy's workers, just fewer than 100 of them, work from home.
"Everyone still works from home, which is great for them, because they're mostly uni students and they get to work whatever shifts they want. I looked at getting a head office but sort of abandoned that idea."
So business is booming, but has the rise of internet-enabled smartphones hurt Buddy's business?
"Obviously with our business we're set up to answer practical trivia questions, such as 'who's winning the footy?' or 'what is the snow report at Mt Buller?', however the majority of our questions are now advice related and 'Who is' questions' - otherwise known as ego texting."
"To be honest, we haven't noticed any drop in this entertainment side of the business. People can obviously Google things from their own phone now, so we don't get so much trivia, but thanks to the ego texting and advice related questions, our message volumes are rising and business is rapidly growing."
As for the future, Imhoff says he has plans to grow the business into new markets, including a number of countries across Europe, and is even in the early stages of developing an iPhone app.
"I want to create an iPhone app and charge for questions within the app, which Apple allows you to do now. But we are just in the early stages of discussing and how to go about doing it...but it's pretty exciting."
MOST CHALLENGING PART OF STARTING YOUR BUSINESS:
"I worked over 20 hours a day for at least six months, often not even sleeping at night."
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