You don\u2019t get many firebrand preachers operating out of their mother\u2019s garage. But then Michael Malone was never the standard entrepreneur.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The iiNet founder happily describes himself as an \u201cevangelist\u201d for the internet. In many ways, he has had no choice \u2013 he started up the company at a time when the internet was barely in its infancy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018Get connected\u2019 is a phrase that Malone is prone to using, which isn\u2019t surprising given that he spent years urging people to get online.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The company\u2019s growth, therefore, is not only testament to Malone\u2019s belief in his product, but his belief in the internet and its ability to change the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In setting up his business, Malone had to convince customers they needed a product they had no concept of. In doing so, he\u2019s created a business that has gone from humble beginnings in WA to a 12.4% national market share as of March 2010. The last financial year saw revenues climb to $473.8 million, with a total broadband customer base of 539,000.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n Malone describes going into business as a \u201cdefault decision\u201d, having grown up in WA around his parents\u2019 contracting business.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019d said to my dad, you could earn a bit more money working for someone else, it would have been an alien concept to him,\u201d Malone says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI was therefore always thinking \u2018what\u2019s the next bright business idea? What\u2019s the one that\u2019s going to work? What\u2019s the next big thing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe next big thing\u201d presented itself to Malone when he was 23. At the time, the internet was only available in certain academic environments including universities.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI was graduating from university and I was going to lose my internet access. I looked at the cost of getting a link for myself and it was about $25,000 a year \u2013 this was in 1993 \u2013 to run my own link. It was a 14KB link to the US, so a very slow dial-up modem,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThere was no way I would\u2019ve been able to afford that so I asked a few other students at uni if they would chip in. That was my market research. Two hundred customers paying $25 a month would cover my costs, so that was my business plan.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fellow uni student Michael O’Reilly asked Malone if he could come on board, offering his technical skills, forming an ideal partnership of entrepreneurial spirit and technical knowledge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMichael was the techie guy. Relatively speaking, I\u2019m a bit technical but my degree was in maths so I didn\u2019t know much about computing or IT,\u201d Malone explains.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In order to fund the equipment and connection for the first six months, Malone combined $15,000 of his own money with a $10,000 loan from his parents. He says applying for a bank loan wasn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI had no assets. I was living at home operating a business that banks didn\u2019t understand. There\u2019s no way a bank would\u2019ve loaned me money,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe first hundred customers \u2013 half of them would\u2019ve been people like me. People who had just graduated from university, people who had been in the hard sciences or people who were in really niche areas like language studies and genealogists.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo one had heard of the World Wide Web yet, but that changed in October 1994. A year after we started, there was a piece of [web browser] software released called Netscape, which changed everything.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen Netscape got released in late \u201994, it had taken us a year to put on a few hundred customers and then we put on 1,000 customers in three months.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n The business began in Malone\u2019s mother\u2019s garage, which meant installing multiple phone lines. For every customer that called the company, there needed to be a phone line.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to Malone, he took every opportunity between 1994 and 1995 to \u201cevangelise\u201d the internet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI spoke at education conferences, the local rotary club \u2013 any opportunity to stand up in front of a group and tell them \u2018you\u2019ve got to connect\u2019,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d always hand out brochures, with every ISP in the state that I was aware of in alphabetical order, so I made sure it wasn\u2019t about joining iiNet but just getting online.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWith each session, I\u2019d come up with a bunch of applications or websites or chat channels or news groups that were relevant to that sector.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t out there telling everyone to buy my product. I was out there saying \u2018this can transform your life\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLike any new technology, if you can inspire one or two people in each audience to give it a go, their words when they start telling everyone else what they\u2019ve done are far more powerful than mine.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Neither Malone nor O’Reilly drew any income for two and a half years. Their first staff member was Smith\u2019s wife, who quit her job as an economist to handle the administration side of iiNet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMichael [O’Reilly] ran the computers and I was out there chasing customers, and was very passionate about the service side of things, but in terms of our books and so on, it was appalling,\u201d Malone says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c[The appointment of O’Reilly’s wife] was quickly followed by one of our customers, who came to us and said, I want to get into this. I\u2019ll work for you on half the normal salary.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By July 1995, there were two people working out of Malone\u2019s garage and four people operating at desks in his bedroom. However, this was not the primary reason behind the company\u2019s move from suburbia to the CBD.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love to say it was a plan but in reality, we had 300 phone lines coming to my mum\u2019s house by then. Telstra were very accommodating but they ran out of capacity,\u201d Malone says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cTheir recommendation was the CBD because it was the only place they felt they could cope with our growth.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n Contrary to popular belief, Malone says it was far easier to start up in a small market like WA.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI look at Western Australia with Bankwest and HBF \u2013 it\u2019s an isolated environment and an isolated business community as well. It makes it possible for you to set up here.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c[The isolation] allowed us to do things in Western Australia. We were oblivious to what was happening on the east coast.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Malone says one way in which he grew the business was by setting up points of presence in remote areas outside of Perth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn Gingin (a small rural town) for instance, the local community up there gave us access to the police station,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe got a room at the back of the police station, which was where our equipment and modems were located. This provided Gingin for the first time with internet access and that was a very powerful [concept] for such an isolated community.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t ever part of our business plan or business strategy. It was because we had to bring \u2018religion\u2019 to the communities. In retrospect, it was good move and it helped us in establishing our WA credentials.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Malone says it soon became apparent that hiring people purely for their skills was compromising the customer-focused nature of the business.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d hire people that were IT grads or technical grads yet our primary job is to answer the phones. Even today, I\u2019ve got 2,300 staff and over 80% of them are in our call centres,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWithin three months [of starting] the technical staff were saying \u2018I don\u2019t like talking to people. I want a dark office somewhere and I want to work on computers\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c[In late 1995], this guy Glen, who\u2019s still with us, made the comment \u2018you guys are idiots. You shouldn\u2019t be hiring technical people \u2013 you should be hiring people from hospitality and you can train them on the technical stuff\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo we shifted completely. We became a registered training organisation, we started hiring people from hospitality or tourism, and we have fairly intensive training at the beginning to bring them up to speed.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe did it for operational reasons [but] I think it really did a lot to reinforce that culture that we\u2019re about service; that\u2019s our number one priority so anyone in the business needs to demonstrate a background in service in some way or another.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/b><\/p>\n iiNet certainly hasn\u2019t flagged due to the competition posed by other internet service providers. In fact, the fast-moving IT industry has provided the perfect landscape for the company to grow.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With products including broadband, naked DSL, voip and phone services, iiNet is now selling the \u2018religion\u2019 of technology to a national audience.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Malone says his advice to start-ups follows the Nike slogan \u201cJust Do It\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI constantly meet people who have had great business ideas and there\u2019s [always] a million excuses not to do it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAll I can say is that every year it gets harder \u2013 I could not have done what I\u2019ve done, today. I\u2019ve got kids and a mortgage and things to lose now, whereas doing this at 23, what did I have to lose really?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019ve got a great idea, or you can see a product that doesn\u2019t exist or a way of doing things, or you know you can do it better than the people out there, then just get out there and do it. The best business plan is to run the business.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You don\u2019t get many firebrand preachers operating out of their mother\u2019s garage. But then Michael Malone was never the standard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The next big thing<\/h2>\n
From suburbia to CBD<\/h2>\n
No woes in WA<\/h2>\n
Technical problems<\/h2>\n
<\/b><\/p>\niiNet Today<\/h2>\n