OpenAgent co-founder and co-CEO Zoe Pointon has all the time had the entrepreneurial gene.
When she was simply seven, Pointon’s dad paid her 20 cents for each fish that she caught off the close by harbour. An bold and artful entrepreneur even at such a younger age, Pointon enlisted a pal, who she paid solely 5 cents for each fish.
Removed from being indignant at his daughter for the trick, Pointon’s dad was impressed. It was an indication that she was choosing up on a few of the entrepreneurial expertise he had been imparting.
“My dad was fairly proud at that time,” Pointon says. “He was like, ‘yep, she picked up the entrepreneurial gene’.”
Pointon’s father ran his personal enterprise, and these type of instructional video games started very early on in her life, with issues like being paid to select up pine cones.
Whereas she was in college Pointon put the gene into motion for the primary time, launching a lawn-mowing firm along with her now-husband. But it surely wasn’t a profitable one.
The pair have been making about $1 per hour working within the sweltering Brisbane warmth. After naming the corporate ‘Too Straightforward Mowing’, their mates have been fast to level out that it was something however. But it surely’s by no means actually been about cash for Pointon.
“I’m extra happy on the market mowing lawns and getting one thing accomplished – fixing a necessity and making an influence,” she says.
And the enterprise was one other necessary step in Pointon’s journey of changing into a profitable Australian entrepreneur. After graduating from her commerce and advertising and marketing diploma, Pointon thought she was able to launch her personal enterprise, however after some convincing from her father, determined to take a technique consulting job at McKinsey in Sydney first to take a style of the world and construct up some expertise.
“I acquired a broad vary of trade expertise, worldwide expertise and expertise throughout Australia,” she says.
“I used to be working for large corporations on some actually massive issues with extremely sensible folks. I developed lots of expertise there round problem-solving beneath strain, information analytics and decision-making.”
After three years on the job, Pointon was provided a fellowship with the corporate, which might’ve seen her spend a yr working elsewhere, then full an MBA abroad earlier than returning to repay the mortgage to McKinsey.
The supply validated Pointon’s expertise and expertise, however she couldn’t settle for it – the entrepreneurial gene was calling but once more. As an alternative, she turned to freelance consulting within the meantime and whereas coaching for an Ironman competitors, inspiration struck.
“I put my work life on maintain for just a little bit whereas I used to be coaching, and I returned needing extra problem in my work life,” Pointon says. “I used to be barely unfulfilled and I needed to do one thing entrepreneurial. That’s when the very first seeds of an thought for OpenAgent got here.”
After getting back from coaching, Pointon teamed up with co-founder Marta Higuera to launch OpenAgent, a platform for Australians to promote property with ease and transparency. Greater than 4 years later, the corporate has grown into one among Australia’s most promising and profitable startups, with 95 staff, 10,000 customers and $20 million in funding.
The startup recently scored a $12 million funding round in August led by Reinventure together with Breakthrough Labs and Qualgro. Whereas she has all the time had the entrepreneurial gene, the challenges of working a enterprise can by no means really be anticipated.
“If it was like what you anticipated then you definitely most likely wouldn’t be silly sufficient to do it within the first place,” Pointon says. “It’s a lot extremely more durable than I assumed. Not a lot may have gone extra proper than it did and it has nonetheless been arduous.”
However from the very begin Pointon and Higuera knew they have been onto one thing and the pair persevered by way of the robust early days – it took them six months to attain their first consumer – to construct OpenAgent right into a thriving younger enterprise.
“It’s extremely addictive and extremely difficult to stroll that path,” Pointon says. “We’ve been working so arduous for therefore lengthy and nonetheless have to this point to go. It’s completely the toughest factor I’ve ever accomplished.”
OpenAgent is an outlier in additional methods than one. It’s one of many few Australian startups to have two feminine founders, and is working in two closely male-dominated industries: tech and actual property.
As a feminine entrepreneur in a male-dominated trade, Pointon has needed to show herself and her firm rather more than her male counterparts.
“The feminine type of management is much less on the market and fewer self-promoting,” she says. “In the event you’re a VC and meet an extremely assured founder after which one who’s extremely reasonable, who're you going to again?
“We needed to ship extra when it comes to traction and reveal that we knew precisely what we have been doing to get the credibility to lift funds.”
Encouraging this confidence within the subsequent era of feminine Australian entrepreneurs is essential to make sure the tech and startup worlds are extra various and equal.
“There are lots of unbelievable boards that exist purely to assist girls do higher at this and join them with folks that may assist,” Pointon says. “We have to discover a method to make tech, startups and engineering thrilling and fascinating for younger women.
“It’s not simply one thing that nerdy little boys do of their bedrooms, it’s someplace you'll be able to create lovely issues, make an influence and alter the world.”
However with a thriving startup, Pointon now has the self-confidence and perception to proceed scaling and constructing OpenAgent.
“A few of that insecurity has gone – we’ve acquired one of the crucial profitable startups in Australia, we’ve raised a ton of cash and we’ve grown a enterprise actually quick,” she says.
“I need to be adequate for my very own sake, not adequate for a girl.”
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