Revenue: $2.58 million
Growth: 147%
Founders: Thomas Caesarowicz, 27, Mark Caesarowicz, 60
Head office: South Australia
Year founded: 2009
Employees: 30
Industry: Finance and insurance
Website: www.positivelendingsolutions.com.au
Mark Caesarowicz and his son Tom founded Positive Lending Solutions in May 2009, at the height of the Global Financial Crisis, after Mark was made redundant from his previous job in the finance industry.
Caesarowicz says the pair had various ideas on how they could grow the business but because of the global downturn struggled to see a way to get it off the ground during the first six months while the whole market was dormant.
He says it was Tom who identified a niche in the asset finance area.
“So we moved the business focus from mortgage lending to asset, equipment, and marine finance,” he says.
“We realised we had to diversify and invest heavily in technology to survive.”
The father-and-son team created a website and poured all their pennies into online advertising “in a final make or break attempt to generate business” by targeting the asset finance market.
Caesarowicz says this saved the business, leading to the spike in revenue that has helped get the business to where it is today and a turnover of more than $2.5 million the past financial year.
Positive Lending Solutions offers home loans through 30 different lenders, car loan products through 20 different lenders, insurance products through five different channels and investment property solutions.
The company has a total of 30 employees, having taken on 14 in the past year alone.
“We have three full-time staff who focus on developing our websites, CRM, digital marketing plans and future technology investments,” Caesarowicz says.
Digital technology has also allowed the business to expand its reach nationally with offices in Melbourne and Hobart as well as Adelaide. But Positive Lending Solutions won’t be stopping there.
“We intend to place business development managers in every capital city in Australia while investigating the latest digital technology available to support all of our staff,” Caesarowicz says.
“It opens up the whole country to be our target market. ”