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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.
Sheng Yeo, NSW (b. 1988)
Name: Sheng Yeo
Age: 21 (Born: December 1988)
Gender: Male
State: NSW
Look out — Sheng Yeo’s inner entrepreneur has sprung free.
Yeo, co-founder of Orion Virtualisation Solutions (or OrionVM), had a comfortable full-time job when he started running the startup, which provides cloud-computing solutions for clients. He swiftly became aware he couldn’t juggle his “real” job with the demands of OrionVM, where he was head salesman and the finance manager as well as a network engineer.
Something had to give. He said farewell to a regular salary and dove into the cloud.
“The lack of steady income was a scary thought, but I had faith in this company and its team,” he says. “Slowly but surely, we are making inroads.”
He and his partners started OrionVM with their savings. They expect to emerge from beta testing and launch the product in late October. They’re currently courting angel investors.
OrionVM sells computing infrastructure as a service through the Internet — the cloud. Yeo says he and team are more nimble, cost-effective and scalable than their competitors, especially the cloud-computing behemoths Amazon and Google.
And, Yeo notes, Australian companies using an Australian platform don’t have to deal with the 250-millisecond delay from hosting content in the United States. Hey, that’s a computing eternity.
OrionVM uses blogging and social media to get out the word about the company, but Yeo believes nothing compares to face-time. He makes it a point to attend, or send a partner to, as many startup forums and industry conferences as possible.
“In this way, we have become a well-known name in the cloud computing market,” he says, “leaving us in high regard with almost every person we speak to.”
One of the biggest selling points: Yeo says OrionVM is the first company in Australia to release a true API (application programming interface) for the cloud, which allows for easier management of the infrastructure and content.
The result? Here’s Yeo’s assessment: “We have spent $30,000 to $40,000 building up a system that others spend hundreds of thousands on. Our projections show we can be remain competitive, offer a premium service and generate $80,000 on a $10,000 server over three years, running at 60% capacity.”
Sheng Yeo’s favorite quote:
“Watch, listen, and learn. You can’t know it all yourself. Anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity”
— Donald Trump
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To check out the full list of Anthill’s 30under30 winners, click here.
