Smart50 rank: 31
Revenue: $1,430,400
Growth: 58.43%
Founders: Paul Quinn, 35
Based: New South Wales
Employees: 9
Industry: Internet
Website: www.quinntessential.com.au
Paul Quinn was working in a corporate marketing role in 2001 when his budget was cut by 75%. When he spotted a niche opportunity, he made the decision to strike out on his own.
"There were over 3,600 recruitment firms in Australia alone and no one was specialising in helping them with their strategic marketing efforts," Quinn says. "There were advertising agencies that specialised in recruitment, but from my direct experience they were more concerned with placing and setting your job advertising in the newspaper than in helping you to plan and execute a fully integrated marketing plan."
Quinn developed three main products: Cloud 9 Rewards (a re-brandable reward and recognition program for staff and customers); LiveSalary (an online salary comparison portal that recruiters can re-brand for use on their own website); and the company's main product, PeoplePulse, which delivers a range of survey tools that companies can use for things like exit interviews, customers and staff satisfaction surveys and training needs analysis.
While the business started out under a consultancy services model, Quinn says the face of the business changed in 2004 when the company shifted to a subscription model, whereby clients are invoiced up-front on an annual renewable licence.
"The regular subscription revenue also gave a strong base on which to employ staff and reinvest in our product development to help ensure we compete and win during side-by-side comparisons between us and cheaper US-based software," Quinn says.
The move to a subscription model coincided with a push beyond the recruitment sector into areas like government and health. It may well have saved the company.
"Recruitment firms have experienced a horrible past 12 months. I know of one niche recruiter who has seen three out of five of their main competitors go into liquidation in the last nine months."
Despite the tough environment, Quinn has managed to keep growth on track, posting revenue of $1.4 million in 2008-09. Like many companies on the Smart50, he even believes the weak economy had made the company better.
"In some ways the market downturn has helped us - more great staff are available and prepared to work in smaller, fast growing business such as ours."
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