Work It Baby is SNOBS’ appreciation page for fine lookin’ Australian men who work hard, and look damn good while they’re at it!
If you know a dashing businessman contact SNOBS. Not only will we all get to look at the hottie (or rugged ‘salt of the earth’ type) who works in your HR department, or sells toner cartridges down the street – this is also a great way for gents to score some well-deserved promotion. Go on, do him a favour and submit his details now!
Name: Matt Freedman
Title: CEO, eMarketing Consultant
Business Names: Sticky Tickets, Free2Speak
Location: Sydney, NSW
Find him online: www.mattfreedman.com.au
You’ve launched three online businesses, nice work! Is it like learning a foreign language, where it’s easy to learn four if you’ve already nailed one (or so we hear)?
As an entrepreneur, your first business is just preparing you for your next. I was pretty naive when I started Redback Solutions and have learned many lessons. Then next businesses were a lot easier because I knew what business models I wanted and had the contacts and network of people to help me get them off the ground. I was a sole owner in Redback Solutions but have partners in Sticky Tickets and Free2Speak. If you can get the partnership right it really helps. Once you have one successful business you also find people come to you with ideas which makes it easier to get the next business going.
What are your businesses about?
Redback Solutions (www.rb.com.au) is a website development company that I started in 1999. I saw a gap in the market for a web development company that had a strong focus on the end result and could use the right balance of creative and technical skills to make it happen. This is common now, but rare at the time.
Sticky Tickets (www.stickytickets.com.au) is an online business that allows people organising events to sell tickets online. It offers a full set of tools for event organisers so they can easily take credit card payments, automatically issue eTickets, receipts and also export attendance lists.
Free2Speak (www.free2speak.com.au) is an online directory of speakers who are willing to speak for free. Many of the speakers listed are people trying to build their personal brand by speaking. They’re usually consultants or authors who see speaking as a way to get in front of potential clients. Or they’re people who want to become professional speakers and are looking for opportunities to improve their skills.
We pulled this quote from your blog: “the secret of success is to focus on finding a problem and looking for the best solution first, then looking for the associated income stream.” Is that the concept you folowed for all three businesses – and is it as easy at sounds?
It sounds simple but most people don’t follow it when they start a business. They’re good at their job so they go into business doing that thing. They focus first on the income stream – how to make money doing what they want to do – not the problem. I was guilty of doing that with Redback Solutions but over a 10-year period I learned and it evolved. With Sticky Tickets we got it right; I’ll explain how…
Problem – lots of small organisations have to sell tickets to their events on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis. Existing ticketing solutions were too expensive or not available for small events so organisers (often volunteers) have to do it the time consuming manual way.
Solution – create a website that is self service, easy to use, is as automated as possible and allows them to save time whilst still having control over the ticketing of the event.
Income Stream – Add a small booking fee to each ticket. This covers the merchant fee + a margin for Sticky Tickets. No setup fee or other costs, makes it a simple structure and a no risk proposition (it doesn’t cost anything if they don’t sell tickets). Margin on each ticket is very small so make the business extremely scalable and make money from high volume.
You’re featured in a book called Secrets of Internet Entrepreneurs Exposed! by Dale Beaumont. Is your secret the one mentioned above, or are there others we should know about?
The secret is …. “there is no one secret, just an accumulation of knowledge and experience”.
To be successful as an entrepreneur you just have to learn as much as you can. You can learn from other people by reading, going to seminars and finding mentors and you can learn from making mistakes. You learn best from making mistakes but it’s cheaper if you can learn from others.
Do you think of yourself as an entrepreneur? What is your definition of one?
Yes I definitely think of myself as an entrepreneur. My definition ….. “sucker for punishment”.
But seriously, an entrepreneur is a person who is driven by a burning desire and passion to take ideas, create businesses from them and then grow the business to a point where they sell it or hand over the management to someone else so they can start it all again. Entrepreneurs love the start up and high growth phases, but once the business is a little more mature, they get bored. That’s when they need to put in a manager or exit the business and go after the next idea.
Do you know any dashing business gents we should interview?
Work It Baby is a great way for ‘the men folk’ to score some well-deserved (and free!) business promotion at SNOBS. Just look at the great archive of interviews we’ve done so far. If you know a fine fella in business, do him a favour and submit his details now!
Or, ask Matt a question!
Like to know more about his style of business management, or the industry he works in? Just leave your questions in the comment box and we’ll make sure he’s notified…
