Australian Entrepreneur Builds Automotive Empire Out of Adversity

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Australian Entrepreneur Simon

Simon grew up in Ipswich, the west of Brisbane in Australia, with his parents going their separate ways when he was just 6 years old. This practically destabilized the young Simon, getting into trouble at school, with his teachers seemingly losing hope on him. His loving dad was, however, not ready to give up on his son, subsequently sending him to a private school. Simon got kicked out of grade 11 as he was seemingly bad at everything, except math, which probably explains his rise to success as a businessman.

Simon dropped out of school and got a job answering phones at a shed company, where he earned $200 weekly. The young Simon got another job as at an internet supermarket, joining forces with a mother and daughter to start a company. Simon was one of the first 15 employees at the company, where he worked for 10 years before taking his leave. Simon was obviously unsatisfied with the traditional 9 to 5 and had other ideas.

During the period of my last year at that job to my next job, I had a girlfriend who was working for one of the biggest coffee brewers in Brisbane, called Merlo Coffee.” And I met her and said – “you’re too good to be working for them, let’s own our own coffee shop”. So I built her a coffee shop and we ran that coffee shop for years until she cheated on me with a guy and I ended up having to sell it to her,” said Simon.

Simon’s rollercoaster relationship did not deter him from achieving his goal and he got into freight forwarding, buying stock, and other wares from overseas in and out. However, his passion remained with product design, which has led him to his current state. Thanks to his years of experience working in different industries, Simon learnt that there was more to building a successful brand than making a great product.

It was also about the attitude towards the product and towards the vehicle and the people that would buy the product that we took care of. If they needed a hand fitting product – we would fit the product for them and build the business on that,” said Simon.

Simon worked for a couple of companies in the automotive industry while building his business on eBay.

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