What is the 30under30?
30under30 is an Anthill initiative 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.
Stephane Ibos, NSW (b. 1985)
Name: Stephane Ibos
Age: 29 (Born: July 1985)
Gender: Male
State: NSW
Known for: Maestrano
Stephane Ibos is determined to make a real difference to SMEs all over the world with his B2B company, Maestrano which he started in 2012, with the help of angel investors.
“We are convinced that SMEs have been left out of the cloud revolution and of the progress of the software industry. They do not interest the large corporations and are outrageously billed by technical professionals,” he shared about the purpose behind his business.
“We wanted to put an end to this and provide SMEs with best-of-breed tools, available without any technical hassle, in a simple, secured, user-friendly environment,” he added.
However, securing their first round of funding was an uphill task.
“No one believed that Maestrano could work. B2B for SMEs is not sexy enough!” Stephane revealed to Anthill. “It took months of brand promotion and advocacy for our idea.”
“One pitch, one night, when we thought our adventure wouldn’t last much longer, I went all in and spoke from my gut for five minutes. We managed to raise $1 million in seven weeks.”
They haven’t looked back since. Maestrano, which now has more than 1,000 SME customers from all over the world, has won four business awards in Australia and the US.
Stephane also revealed that they will be opening their operations in the United States within three months, have two joint ventures in the Middle East and Asia in the pipeline and are on track to hit the $10 million mark in revenue by the end of their third year.
Anthill asks: Stephane Ibos, what’s your super power?
I think I have lots of empathy and it can be a gift as much as a curse as you can easily become the recipient of everyone else’s feelings, fears, tensions, etc. But once tamed, it is actually a great asset as it helps being a better, more understanding (hence efficient) leader, connecting with customers and third parties and conducting negotiations.
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