Today, OBT turns 25 years!
The beginnings…
During the time when I used to travel to different customer offices, setting up and maintaining their computer networks, I am so very grateful and thankful to my very first customer in Australia. Becky Zropf, thank you so much for your trust in me – it helped increase my own trust and ability!
One day, a friend of mine and myself finished a major maintenance job at my customer office in Double Bay, then standing outside the office, I mentioned that I was frustrated that due to travel time and limited capacity, I had to go to Lidcombe the next day to work on another customer network.
Then, I clearly remember I voiced to my friend, “There must be an easier way where instead of us (the people with the skills) have to travel to each and every client, what if we could change the model where instead of us travelling to client networks, instead the clients networks lived with us, where we could maintain it at any time, and the customers simply remotely connect to us and no longer had to wait for support”. Little did I realised that what I just described is the essence of how cloud computing works. So, that very afternoon we headed to a café and drew up the business plan – well, it was a network and data centre blueprint.
So, that’s how I started this journey, in my 20s, with two other friends, with no experience and no capital, but with a pursuit to serve customers and make their life easier.
Starting a cloud business in 1999 was well ahead of its time – about 9 years before it started to become known in Australia. Before we were referred to as cloud business, we were called a hosting company, and before that, an APS (Application Service Provider).
From very humble beginnings, where in an era where there were no data centres to access space, we setup our racks and turned a garage into a data centre.
We didn’t have the capital to purchase the expensive brand name servers – so, a typical week was filled with regular visits to the ATM, withdrawing the maximum cash allowed, then purchasing parts and building our own computers. We were able to have more servers with greater power with the little we had.
When you pioneer, you are so early, most of the supporting establishments that make up the ecosystem aren’t there yet, and they take time to catch-up. We started before the vendors of the world (such as Microsoft, Citrix, etc) had developed (or even recognised that they need to develop) consumption based monthly licensing (as opposed to the usual perpetual licensing). That meant that we had to use our capital to acquire licenses and then finance and charge to our clients a small monthly fee. That meant a serious financial pressure. We were one of the first handful of firms that had to liaise directly with Microsoft Redmond around the first license agreement they issued for subscription licensing.
When we powered on, it was the era well before terms like high-speed and broad band existed. It was the time of 33.6K modems! I remember how glad we were when we upgraded to 56K! We offered the market (our clients) remote working secured through mandatory use of MFA back in 2000!
We shortly signed up our very first customer and for our very first customer, I’m forever grateful and thankful. Marie Lucas, a very sincere thank you! By you signing up with no other customer or testimonial to follow spoke absolute volumes to us and strengthened a belief within us that kept the momentum moving.
We are so very thankful to all our customers who put their trust in us.
So, we set out to serve our customers, serve our team, serve our shareholders and serve the market and ecosystem.
Milestones and Giants…
We’ve had many milestones along the way. I have also learned that milestones are just the high winning moments, but also the challenging depths too. Within the first few years, I remember a few giants we had to face.
The first one, we set out and raised capital to fund the business. The total capital raised for OBT was $220K! That’s such a small amount, for a business that requires highly skilled talent and a data centre full of server – that’s absolutely crazy! We certainly learned how to be frugal and do some impossible things with the little we had in our hands!
The second giant was market predictions. Gartner and IDC research at the time were predicting that over 60% of our type of business model would fail within the first year, then 60% for the remaining the second year, and so on compounding for five years!
The third giant – I clearly remember we had several competitors, and about just three of them, one was an enterprise business with an established brand, with thousands of staff and just their marketing department had more staff that we had! They pulled out
within five or so years. The second was a business that successfully raised $140 million (that’s a lot today, but it was huge about 25 years ago). They went bust within five years! The third was a multi-billion dollar global technology brand that made an acquisition and committed to dominate this space. They sold off their business within the first 5-7 years!
A fourth giant – we had a competitor with a well established brand selling the similar service for 1/3 the price of us. We found out that the scores of salespeople pushed up to management that the challenge with winning more sales was because they were too expensive! That’s when we learned another invaluable lesson, we were out to serve our customers and were selling value, not price – and we won more customers selling value (3x the competitor priced based offering)!
Some Achievements…
The three values of OBT being, pioneering (achieving what hasn’t been achieved before), easy (making things easier for our customers first and then all), relational (having genuine and strong relationships that’s stronger than a binding contract).
Over the years, we’ve been in a position to support several worth impact causes!
To that end, our customers and partners have often referred to as highly competent, black belts, navy seals – describing the amazing breadth and depth in capability of the team with precision and speed of execution.
Some highlights we’ve had along the way, being a multi-award winner, we won some truly amazing awards such as multiple Partner of the year from Microsoft, as well as four consecutive years as Winner from CRN Awards and multiple for the Most Trusted Systems.
We innovated over 50 products and services, solving customer problems. We’ve engaged with over 300 businesses and some of our valued clients ranged from sectors such as Vocational Rehabilitation, Funds Management, Education, Security, Health and also some multi-nationals.
We expanded to Singapore, Ireland and North America, attracting customers starting to venture beyond their home countries.
We were one of the first 10 companies in the world to offer DDC (commonly referred to as Microsoft virtualisation).
Our US team were the first to demonstrate and convince Microsoft engineering in Redmond that they made a virtual voice PBX out of the very early iterations of what we know as MS-Teams (back then, LCS & OCS).
It’s truly humbling to know that of the many team members I’ve worked with, coached, lead – that about 10% of them have gone on to be A-grade players!
It’s an honour to have multiple former OBT customers since become shareholders of new ventures I’ve established.
Challenges…
Being in business may look like glitz and glamour, and for some, even celebrity like. There’s a very different reality behind all that. Make no mistake, small business is not easy.
We’ve had to weather some major storms along the way. Over the 25 years, there’s been at least four catastrophic level storms that looked like they’d disqualify and take us out.
The early years we experienced more data centre outages than I remember. However, we decided to make a terrible experience (for our customers as well as for us) into a moment to shine brighter that all the others in the market. We made how we handle a crisis a key differentiator – leading us to claim that ‘we shine during a crisis’.
The weight of small business is not light, there’s constant challenges and solving complex problems, lack of adequate resources, constant cashflow challenges – an almost permanent weight one carries, even to bed.
Over the years, there’s been too many ‘punch in the guts’ moments – such as seeking lack of integrity outwork in front of your eyes, also having generosity been taken advantage.
With all these, I would still do it all again.
Another thing’s for certain, considering the initial $220K investment, now that’s not a bad return! I’ll certainly invest in the ventures we keep bringing to market.
I believe that business is a place where purpose and impact can be made into a reality by being focused on service to all, solving complex problems, fuelled by amazing people, and producing amazing financial and non-financial returns.
As we keep innovating, it’s time yet again to pivot now!
DM me if this strikes a chord and you’d like to collaborate on what’s next.
With care,
