Revenue: $500,000
Founder: Don Pyke
Industry: Transport
Head Office: Victoria
Employees: 12
Website: www.ecolimo.com.au
Don Pyke's Ecolimo is a limousine and car hire business with a difference - it only uses hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius and the Lexus GS450h.
"There was very little innovation in the limousine/hire car market and we identified the need for a company that was targetting those companies that were increasingly making procurement decisions based on sustainability," Pyke says.
Pyke established the business in 2006 and funded the company using the good old-fashioned method of increasing the mortgage on the family home. The start up phase was not easy and despite the community push for ways to reduce climate change, Ecolimo had to lobby the Victorian Government to change the laws to allow hybrid hire cars.
Despite some initial ridicule from hire car companies and drivers, Ecolimo has found favour with a growing group of customers and has now expanded to Sydney.
MOST CHALLENGING PART OF STARTING YOUR BUSINESS?
"We have learnt that if you are pioneers in an area you have do a lot of hard work to change attitudes."
 |
 |
