Smart50 rank: 6
Revenue: $12,003,786
Growth: 169.55%
Founders: Jim Noort, 38
Based: Queensland
Employees: 21
Industry: Property and business services
Website: www.vikingrentals.com.au
When Jim Noort was supplied with a dirty toilet while building his house, he didn't complain to the supplier. Instead, he founded portaloo company Viking Rentals from his home.
"I knew absolutely nothing about portable toilets and liquid waste," he says. "I had to teach myself and when you make mistakes in this business it can be very smelly."
They started the business in 2005, and costs were more than $1 million. It took 18 months for them to reach $1 million revenue.
The website was created soon after the business and is primarily used to make party hire sales. "We spend heavily on Google advertising and search engine optimisation and get about 5-10% of revenue that way," he says.
Just as the company hit its stride, the downturn hit. "The portable toilet industry is largely tied directly to the housing construction industry. So if housing construction goes down 40% then the portaloo industry goes down the same amount," he says. "The fast growth slowed in the past 12 months and the company bought fewer toilets and trucks than we previously had thought we would need."The housing construction downturn in South East Queensland in the first half of 2009 proved very challenging. "While we did not have to lay off staff, our previously high growth was slowed. In the middle of this slow down we completed a large expensive acquisition and we went through a period of tight cashflows," he says.
"We survived by carefully planning a rolling 60 day cashflow forecast and reviewing it every single day. We are through that now and are starting to flourish again."
He says he learnt that the "what if" scenarios sometimes happen. "So plan for them," he says.
He says Viking has revenue of $3 million and 21 staff including 11 hired in the past year, and are planning to expand the Melbourne business and "possibly" move into Sydney. He is working hard on planning capital requirements. "I am meeting my investment partners to ensure we have our ducks lined up," he says.
He says Viking has forced the industry to change. "Prior to Viking Rentals entering the industry, portable toilets were a disgrace. We lifted the bar very high and this is dragging the industry overall up as our competitors try to meet our challenge," he says.
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