21. Compare TV

Revenue: $2.26 million
Growth: 139.67%
Founder: Oliver Mistry (41)
Head Office: Warriewood, NSW
Employees: 10
Industry: Media
Website: comparetv.com.au

Having previously worked in the media industry, Twenty Twenty Digital founder Oliver Mistry saw the TV and entertainment industry was changing, and set out to create a site helping consumers navigate the many new and varied viewing options.

Soon, however, he realised the site could be expanded to include more entertainment services such as gaming and music, as well as the broadband and mobile plans people use to access them.

Compare TV, a complete online guide to digital entertainment, was born. Now the business has 140% growth and is turning over revenues of $2.26 million annually.

In the early days, however, it was challenging for the business to build traffic, Mistry says.

“To begin with, we had zero visitors, and relied on paid tools to drive traffic,” he explains.

To overcome this, the founder focused on creating quality content, hiring a workforce of writers and developers to help. But sourcing and managing talent brings its own set of problems, especially when running a remote team across various time zones.

“In hindsight, we probably dragged our feet before investing in the right levels of quality. But we’re in a good place now,” Mistry says.

“We learnt from our mistakes,” he adds.

Now, to better manage quality control, the business has set up a core management team in a physical office.

“We still maintain a partially remote team, but they are now run by a team located in a physical office. The impact it has made on communication and productivity has been immense,” he says.

“Productivity is up, mistakes are down, quality has improved. And now we can explore new opportunities as they arise.”

Mistry’s advice for other entrepreneurs is to “treat your small business like a big business and watch it grow into one”.

At the same time, however, he advises them to cut out “all the wasteful stuff” that happens in bigger organisations, such as “useless review schedules, meetings about meetings [and] policy politics”.

These things stop businesses from being able to respond to anything in an agile way, “but without them, you can compete with the big boys”, he says.