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What is 30under30?
30under30 is an Anthill initiative that was launched in early 2008 to encourage and promote entrepreneurship among young Australians. Each year, we invite our readers to nominate young Australian entrepreneurs deserving of recognition for their outstanding entrepreneurial endeavours. More.
Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin, NSW (b. 1982)
Name: Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin
Age: 28 (Born: May 1982)
Gender: Male
State: NSW
He would probably earn a spot in this merry band of honored under-30s just for being a relentless inventor of businesses. His latest concoction — a text-message-based tool that simplifies the way people can log their driving mileage — would be sufficient for a spot in the 30under30 Club.
But what made Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin a stone-cold lock for this award was the stunt he pulled in January for his last venture.
Simply, Eckersley-Maslin launched a blog and announced on it that he would create a fully formed business in seven days with only $500. Then he did it. The result was the enterprise cited above, dubbed AutoCarLog.
The effort got a lot of buzz, in no small part because people found useful advice in the week’s worth of posts. (Day One: Idea & Research; Day Three: Marketing…) He blogged about the creative process, about making connections with others and using those links to build a bridge to the next idea. He made it all seem possible.
And did AutoCarLog perform? Eckersley-Maslin says he has his first customer within a week and the business’ first employee within six months.
“I love working under pressure. I love inspiring others and I love creating business and technology solutions that solve everyday problems in novel ways,” he says. And he’s always in motion; he’s thinking about the exit strategy for a business even as he cooks up the idea for it. “I create businesses without getting personally attached.”
And he doesn’t even consider the one-business-in-seven-days caper his best buzz builder. No, that would be when he traveled to six countries in 12 days to launch a global brand, in a bid to be listed in the Guinness record book as the “smallest multinational.” All done while being filmed for a documentary, sponsored by Servcorp.
Eckersley-Maslin also enjoyed an opportunity to inspire the next generation, volunteering to teach about 20 primary students basic business skills in the Club Kidpreneur program, which concluded with each child actually starting their own microbusiness.
But back to AutoCarLog. Eckersley-Maslin said he goosed the business’ growth potential by tapping into large, multinational networks, accessing a potential client base of 200,000. It took some persuasion, he said, but he got it done. “It’s better to sell to one who buys many,” he says, “than to sell to many who buy one.”
Sebastien International: The Documentary
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To check out the full list of Anthill’s 30under30 winners, click here.
