MBE Education

Start Up Rank: 39
Revenue: $700,000
Founder(s): Reuben Buchanan, Jack Delosa
Industry: Education
Head Office: New South Wales
Employees: 5
Website: www.mbeeducation.com.au

Corporate adviser Reuben Buchanan has helped countless large and mid-size companies raise capital, but he soon realised that many SMEs lacked the know-how to exploit the same opportunities.

With this in mind, Buchanan and Jack Delosa started MBE Education, in order teach small businesses how to raise capital and exit their business for the highest possible price.

The pair, who established the business in 2006 and already have revenue of $700,000, enlist presenters including Siimon Reynolds (Photon Group), Domenic Carosa (Destra/Dominet Digital) and Simon Baker (Realestate.com.au) to help instruct their SME charges.

"The best part of building MBE has been seeing the difference that the education makes to small business owners and entrepreneurs," Buchanan says. "One of our graduates now has $40 million in capital raisings, another is working on a $10 million exit on behalf of a client, and another has gone out and bought two aged care centres outlaying very little of his own capital."

WHAT WAS THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF STARTING UP YOUR BUSINESS?

"The most challenging part was developing a profitable model that didn't require huge delivery time for the presenters; because we only use experts and high-level entrepreneurs. Through this we learnt the importance of leverage - doing more with less."