What does it take to be a company founder? Hear it from our Chief Executive David Tudehope
Video Transcript.
The problem we’re most passionate about solving was the one that our customers talked to us, which was, if only we could turn what was an invoice which just said please pay from Telstra into something that could be a management tool to actually control their costs.
And how could they address this customer service piece where they were not being treated as subscribers, they were being treated truly as customers.
Starting a business is so hard, people don’t realise what it’s like. You have no money, you have a limited amount of time and almost nobody working for you.
And for Aidan and I, we started the business that meant saving on costs everywhere. For example, when we used to travel to Melbourne, we just start the office there and then we used to always catch the bus to Melbourne, catch the bus down overnight, come back overnight the next night, and that’s the only way we could do it. As time progressed, we’ve catched planes these days, but that’s the sort of sacrifice you have to make when you’re a startup.
What remains consistent, is thankfully, that is true to our purpose and we are all about making a difference in markets that are underserved and overcharged. And we’ve found those in telecom is still underserved and overcharged 30 years later, which is remarkable, and we love that market and doing something completely different to everyone else. But also, we found opportunities for the same underserved markets in cloud and in cyber security. And for us, this is a fantastic places where we too can bring that disruptive challenger mindset to customers.
We’ve had some really challenging times. The obvious one we started out was against Telstra. They were the monopolist who had been deregulated. They were like the child that inherited the world and all the customers, and they could not believe that people were taking their customers away from them. So culturally they were having enormous challenges.
But that kind of played also on the competitors because they would use everything in their power and all their wealth to what we call the 3Ds, deny the availability of competition, delay as long as possible and degrade when it finally happens, it’s not the same quality. So, we faced 3Ds and Telstra was. It was like a big dinosaur. It was kind of not that intelligent at one level, but really scary.
And one swish of that tail and you could be dead. So, we had these long regulatory battles with them, trying to open up competition in local calls, calls from fixed phones to mobile phones. And all these battles were a huge part of our first decade, as we fought these 3Ds. The one piece of advice I’d give young Dave, which kind of advice that might have discouraged him, which is starting a business is really hard. And I think for Aidan and I, you tend to underestimate both how long it takes to get a business started, how much personal sacrifice you have to make, how long you work for nothing, and the risk, of course, not being successful even with all of that. And I think if I’d given that advice to young David, he might have thought twice about doing it. So, I think I’ll keep that one to myself.
Looking back, what makes me most proud is that we’ve built a great Australian company that’s given thousands and thousands of young Australians their first job out of university, given them a career in Australia they wouldn’t otherwise get, working for the subsidiary of a multinational and just been a sales support arm. But actually, roles that have been now enable them to grow their careers and become the kind of jobs of the future that we all aspire to. I’m most proud of that. The people pieces both at Macquarie, both our great strength, but also always our greatest challenge, because attracting and retaining talented people is the key to our success.
For me, one of the most special milestones is when we’re recognised at a global level, not Australian level, but a global level for the things that we most value for customer experience with the World Communications Award for the best telco in the world for customer experience, and also for Gallup for staff engagement, because the two are obviously quite related and having staff engaged is one of the most important things for our business. And Gallup gave us an award two years running now for having one of the top 60 places in the, in the world to work. And that’s, that’s something we, we’ve always aspired to.
