Revenue: $4,600,000
Founder: Rob Nixon
Industry: Other
Head Office: Queensland
Employees: 10
Rob Nixon began his self-titled consultancy firm in 2005 after taking a "wealth profile" test - which told him his work in the software development industry wasn't getting him anywhere.
He resigned from his job the following day and began Robnixon, a consultancy firm that helps accounting businesses improve their performance.
"I went to my partners and said, 'I'm out of here', and resigned the next day. It took me two weeks to get out, eight months to sell my shares, and start my own business."
Nixon began what he calls a "different type of consulting business" - entirely funded on his credit card. At the core of the company's offerings is a coaching program that helps train and provide resources to a company's staff to improve productivity.
"I work with both small and large accounting businesses, with turnover ranging from $500k to $25 million, helping them realise their potential and implement strategies to improve their financial position."
"Under the watchful eye of their coach, these firms are (among other things) learning what core strategies they need to implement to improve their results, engaging their team in new modern ways, overhauling systems and going ‘paperless', re-engaging all of their clients with better service... and taking a focused and disciplined approach to running their business."
One of the major differences, Nixon says, is that most coaching programs only offer one-on-one training, while Robnixon provides coaching for up to eight companies in the one session.
"They made no money because they only used the one-on-one model. I wasn't interested in that, so I formed a model that had leverage, and provided coaching for eight businesses at a time."
Nixon definitely found his niche, with the company turning over $1 million in less than a year, and recently recorded $4.6 million during 2008-09.
"We had clients resign in the first year because we didn't know what we were doing. But that's like any start up, you try things and sometimes fail, but we've sorted that stuff out now."
Nixon feels the company has reached a place where it is able to expand overseas, and has "ambitious goals" for the next few years.
"We want to triple our revenue with some new resources over the next couple of years, so I want to reach $40 million within five. We're also at a point where we can go international, and expand into the US, Britain and Canada. Now I'm at a point where I'm out of the day-to-day running of the business, and can look at the big picture stuff and see where the company is going."
MOST CHALLENGING PART OF STARTING YOUR BUSINESS:
"One of the challenges included the fact I hired a bookkeeper and she was giving me wrong numbers. We had major cashflow issues, so I had to basically market myself out of them. We've had people issues, client issues... but we are doing great now."
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