Women: Among the few

Amanda Gome, BRW, 13 October, 2005

Karen Cariss, 32 , PageUp

Turnover: $2.75 million
Growth: 95.87%

Women should start a business straight after suffering the poverty of being a university student, advises Karen Cariss, founder and managing director of PageUp. "You only need a phone and a computer and you can pour everything back into the business because you haven't established a lifestyle yet, spending money on nice wine and food," she says.

Cariss started PageUp in 1997, when she was 24. She was a biochemist and was doing her masters degree when she started a software consultancy with her boyfriend Simon Cariss, specialising in programming in Microsoft Access. "I wasn't enjoying my masters, so we started this part time from Simon's dad's office, rent-free."

For the first five years she drew a low and irregular wage while the company did a lot of work for small and medium-size enterprises and departments of larger companies. "We were both limited by the hours in the day and so decided to develop products we could sell to multiple customers."

They tried to sell products through channel partners but the products were too complex. "We fixed this by developing a direct sales force and using the partners as a referral network."

They developed one product to help people back-up Access databases. "We thought that if we built it, customers would come. But it was the time of the dot.com boom and there were lots of free trials. We didn't do well at converting downloads into sales."

They had more luck with another product they developed called PageUp, software that manages and streamlines the recruitment process. "It automates the low-value-add processes in the recruitment process. It was a major innovation," Cariss says. "We have substantially changed the industry by allowing largely manual processes to be automated."

The first two big clients were ANZ Bank and the Sydney Olympics organisers. "We leveraged off those big names." Clients now include BHP Billiton, Coles Myer, Optus and John Fairfax Holdings.

The pair, who married in 1999, have financed the growth internally, even though quarterly upgrades to software cost "millions". About 17% of revenue is poured into research and development. "We did speak to investors but never found one that clicked." Fortunately, the products have provided regular cashflow. "Simon's creative process is intuitive rather than white lab coat. He is so customer-oriented, and sees how one version works, and improves on that using direct input from clients. However, we did expect to be where we are sooner ... growing organically takes a long time."

Cariss says they were poor at sales and marketing at the start. "But we read a lot, did courses and had mentors. We also hired people who could bring knowledge about other parts of the business."

The Carisses have been able to reduce the hours they work since they hired a general manager. "We had been looking for a general manager for 12 months with no success. Then we heard that the national recruitment manager at Optus, who we knew, had left and we contacted her immediately. She knows a lot of the clients, is well networked and has good people-management and budget skills," Cariss says.

They have also hired an operations manager to look after the technical side of the business. "Finding the right people, keeping them challenged and motivated and retaining them as the business grows is the biggest challenge," she says. "We try to understand what motivates each individual. One might be excited by a learning challenge; others by support and training."

Cariss says the company is keen to export, although there are similar products in Europe. "As soon as you do something new, people copy you, so you have to keep moving as fast as you can."

She says the business strategy is now far more focused. "We used to do business with any client. Now we know who the target market is: a small group of the largest Australian companies. We know exactly what we can sell them and they know very clearly what we do. We have spent a lot of our focus getting very good at a niche area."

Every night, Karen and Simon drive home to their 32-hectare property north of Melbourne. "Fencing and collecting firewood are very grounding," she says. "If it's been chaotic, we go out in the night and look at the stars."