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The Sydney Morning Herald & The Age, April 28 2004: Young Guns by Jeni Harvie
 It takes determination, a great idea and, yes, a dash of luck to make millions. Five entrepreneurs tell Jeni Harvie how they did it.
If business is a gamble, the ones with the most to lose are the entrepreneurs. Not only do they back themselves with their entire, albeit usually modest, savings, but they also live and breathe their creation.
They are absolutely passionate and totally committed to the concept, often to the exclusion of everything else. In fact, David Bayliss, the Victorian president of the Young Entrepreneurs Organisation, refers to them as being "blinkered".
"They are like racehorses with blinkers on - they can only see in a straight line," he says. "They are totally focused, have an undying passion and massive energy levels. They take an idea, create the concept, set up and run the business. And then they have an exit plan.
"They are the backbone of Australian business and you find them everywhere - from your milk bar owner through to multimillion dollar companies."
But it is not for the faint-hearted. "Many succeed but the failure rate is relatively high," says Peter Bryant, the president of the entrepreneurs club MGSM Networker. "But they don't give up. They turn around and have another go, and often they do it better the second or third time around."
He sees entrepreneurship as being "hugely" important. "In a world that is increasingly dynamic and global, we need people who are prepared to seize opportunities and take risks. They also generate a large number of jobs."
Professor Adolph Hanich, the head of the Graduate School of Entrepreneurship at the Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, divides entrepreneurship into three stages.
He calls the first stage the start-up, which involves evaluating the idea and ascertaining if there is a market for it. A business plan has to be formulated, financial investors found and workers recruited.
The second stage is called the transition or ongoing business stage, and it is at this point that Hanich says many businesses fail. "Most entrepreneurs are terrible at delegating," he says. "They are like the captain of the team and they want every member to be directly accountable to them. They find it hard to change from that role to a professional manager role."
The final stage is the exit or harvest strategy, when the entrepreneur hands over to someone else and moves on.
"A real entrepreneur tends to be a serial entrepreneur and wants to do it over and over again," Hanich says. "There is a similarity between the serial entrepreneur and an artist. Once the artist has finished a painting or sculpture, they don't want to look at it for the rest of their lives; they want to do it all again."
And contrary to popular belief, it is not money that motivates. "Often the public thinks entrepreneurs are greedy people who want to make a lot of money," Hanich says. "They do make a lot of money, but only because they are successful at creating a market for their idea. They are hardly ever driven by money.
We tracked down five successful Australians to discover what drives them and their businesses.
Helen Jarman, the managing director of Infoactiv Logistics Solutions.
One piece of advice has stayed with Helen Jarman since her school years. "It came from my legal studies teacher, who said 'Go out and make a name for yourself. It doesn't matter how you do it - just go out there and
build a solid reputation.' "
Jarman has followed the advice and is making her mark with her logistics supply chain management company, Infoactiv. The IT-based service tracks clients' products from their source anywhere in the world to their destination.
She started the business in 1999. It now boasts over 16 staff and customers including Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems
and IBM.
Jarman trained in economics and worked for a number of years with NRMA Insurance (now IAG) and GIO before landing a position overseeing more than 250 accounts with
a major Domestic Airfreight operation in 1997.
But she was unhappy with the level of service she could provide at AirExpress. "I became frustrated that I could only offer clients 10 per cent of what they required in terms of managing their supply chain activity," Jarman says.
Two years later she decided to go it alone and rented an office in Preston, Melbourne. "I had no capital, no assets, no clients, no resources, no staff," she says. "All I had was a charge card, which I used to buy a couple of cheap computers. It was the exact opposite of how you should start a business, and it is not something I would recommend."
What she did have was a vision, confidence and passion. Her first big break came with
a major IT multi-national in 2000, but it wasn't until November last year that she got help to manage the business. "Until this time I was everything - I was accounting, marketing, sales, operations, IT. I designed all the systems, I even did maintenance."
She now has over 16 people working for her and last year won the Westpac business owner category of the Telstra Businesswomen's Awards.
For more information on Infoactiv’s products and services, please email info@infoactiv.com.au
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