Smart50 rank: 13
Revenue: $5,463,423
Growth: 101.41%
Founders: Scot Ennis, 32, Andy Jamieson, 31
Head Office: New South Wales
Employees: 25
Industry: Communications
Website: www.switchedonmedia.com.au
Many entrepreneurs would sympathise with having to put personal financial solvency aside in order to fund a business. Scott Ennis and Andy Jamieson of Switched On Media know the feeling well, neglecting a salary for six months in order to get their search engine optimisation firm up and running.
Having worked at companies such as Fairfax, eBay and P&G, adapting to a start-up environment was tough. But over time, the passion took over.
“Neither of us had worked in an agency before, let alone run one, so we were very green in terms of generating new business. All we focused on was doing good work for our clients. From there, good things happened.”
Years later, business is booming, with clients including PayPal, Microsoft, Cochlear and Canon. Turnover is $5.4 million, with the company expanding into fast-growth areas such as social media, mobile SEO and content marketing.
The sheer growth of the SEO industry is giving the pair enough challenges, with new work in social media keeping them on their toes.
“The growth in mobile is also overwhelming. There has been a 3000% increase in Australian mobile internet usage in the last 3 years, and Google predicts that more internet searches will be done on mobiles than desktops by 2013.”
“Did you know that 26% of Australians have already purchased products via their mobile phone? It's an exciting industry to be in.”
Of course there are downsides to growth. The pair laments that a mistake which cost $10,000 two years ago now costs five times as much, and say that with the rapid growth of the industry, there is always something to be concerned about.
“We do have a “3am rule” whereby if we are waking up at 3am and thinking about something, then clearly it’s a problem and we need to solve it. Once we realise we are losing sleep over something, we normally solve it pretty quickly.”
Communication is especially critical, the pair says, as some clients don’t understand just what the company has done for them. In fact, they say despite improving one client’s results by 100%, they lost the business because they “weren’t able to express the value” of their work.
Keeping staff members happy is important, especially as the company recently opened a Melbourne office. Ennis and Jamieson say they try to keep the culture as collaborative as possible.
“The team actively brainstorms new ideas for their clients almost every day, and the great ideas usually bubble up to management fairly quickly. This enables us to keep on the ball and to move quickly into new, high growth areas.”
