Start Up Rank: 2
Revenue: $8.79 million
Founder(s): Vanessa Garrard, Richard Chen, Jill Mulder
Industry: Wholesale trade
Head Office: Queensland
Employees: 14
Website: www.e3style.com
The founders of E3 Style, Vanessa Garrard, Richard Chen, Jill Mulder, have built an extremely successful business creating electronics accessories for Australia's biggest retailers. In just three years (the company was set up in 2006) the company's revenue has reached almost $9 million and there are now 14 full-time employees working in the business.
Sounds exactly like the sort of business a bank would love to back, right?
Wrong. The banks didn't want anything to do with the business and the company was forced to turn down orders in the early days in order to manage its cashflow as carefully as possible.
"Each of the directors made the decision to leave highly paid positions with their previous employer to invest their own finance, time and energy to start E3," Garrard says.
"For almost a year the directors didn't draw a wage and instead left cash in the business to build up cash reserve."
This fanatical focus on cashflow gave rise to a few of the funniest start up moments at E3, such as when the company received its first cheque for $4,620, which they scanned and then saved.
They also braved the elements in the name of penny pinching.
"We were in the front room of a rental house that was really, really cold," Garrard says.
"We sat there every day freezing cold because we were worried about spending money, so we didn't go and buy a heater. One day we bit the bullet and bought a heater and realised that we could buy one for $20 - we had spent six weeks freezing our bums off before that!"
The trio also had the added distraction of a legal challenge from their former employer, who tried to stop them doing business in Australia. The case was eventually sorted out, but the distraction and the financial burden was not something any business wants to deal with.
The company's strategy has changed little in the last three years - build a range of high quality products with the end consumer in mind, at aggressive retail price points, with easy to understand packaging and artwork.
The company offers a product development and sourcing service, that includes product design and tooling, branding, packaging design, artwork creation, aggressive pricing, full quality control, logistics support and market intelligence including full competitor and product benchmarking information. And they focused on three main categories: accessories for AV, IT and OPTIX, youth electronics and promotional products.
"The vision was to offer the right product, at the right price, at the right time," says Garrard.
They developed products for Estelle Designs, Teac and Akai and distribute products for Philips, TDK and Memorex. Products can be seen in ALDI, Kmart, Target, Big W, Dick Smith, Tandy and Fry's.
One ambition of the company is to continue to grow and strengthen its involvement in corporate social responsibility activities. E3 has partnered with Landcare Australia and are in the process of developing an industry-leading range of eco products. Funds from each eco product sold will go to Landcare to assist with their community environment programs.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE BEST PART OF STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS?
"Walking in to the office each day and seeing a team of people with the same drive and enthusiasm for the business as we have is very rewarding."
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