Take 2 savvy school boys with the smarts, an innate ambition, and there you have the formula for what became a multi billion dollar journey for Leigh Jasper and his partner Rob Phillpot.
Leigh Jasper is CEO of Saniel Ventures and co-founder of Aconex, the world’s most widely used cloud collaboration platform for construction, engineering and infrastructure projects. He is also on the board of SEEK Ltd, Salta Properties, Launch Victoria, Second Quarter Ventures and the Burnet Institute.
Leigh grew up in Rutherglen in country Victoria and attended Scotch College boarding school where he met his to-be business partner, Rob. He went on to excel in management and consulting with McKinsey & Co. while Rob was at Multiplex, however together they generated a fruitful idea that would not only benefit them financially but also the construction industry as a whole. This was the birth of Aconex, the construction management and collaboration platform that changed the way businesses operated.
“We thought there was opportunity to use the internet to change the way construction happened and to really eliminate all of that hard copy information that at the time was so difficult to manage in the industry.” States Mr. Jasper.
In 1998-2000, soon after the .com internet wave hit, many businesses were exploring what the internet could do for their businesses. It was at this time that Leigh and Rob collaborated and raised their initial $1.8million from family and friends for their own start up in the tech industry, later known as Aconex.
“In hindsight we didn’t realise how lucky we were to be able to raise those funds…we were 2 guys with a business plan”
Aconex was launched in 2001 with systems that streamlined tedious tasks and processes and automated them. Technology was applied to solve many common construction management problems and despite a few macroeconomic setbacks and expected hurdles along the way, Aconex's growth was steadily flourishing by 2002.
“We were selling an internet based service when most people connected to the internet via dial up modem. If you were lucky you had ADSL” States Mr. Jasper. “Some of our customers still didn’t have computers on site so when you’re trying to sell an internet based system when they don’t have computers its a little tough” Good integration and change management was a key factor in overcoming this hurdle with a large part of that success being attributable to having the right people for each stage of the business together with a great company culture. Aconex had a unique culture and Mr. Jasper’s relaxed friendly demeanour was exemplary of this and how a company’s positive attitude and success is truly fed from the top down.
“It was an extension of how we wanted to work together.” States Mr. Jasper “Giving people a chance to try things and we expected people to do things differently, we knew we’d all make mistakes, we were making mistakes … but learning from these mistakes and moving on and growing and a can-do attitude. We maintained through the rest of the journey a low key relaxed culture, not much hierarchy in the business. Once we had this culture, we then set about protecting it and nurturing it."
In 2014 Aconex was listed on the stock exchange and 3 years later, Oracle, the worlds second largest software company in the world made an offer Leigh and Rob couldn’t refuse. Acting in shareholders best interest, it was sold for a profitable 1.6 billion dollars.
“Personally I wasn’t looking to sell the business, I was very happy doing what I was doing, the business was growing well but we were a listed company and Oracle, after a couple times of saying no, eventually they put a price to us that we couldn’t say no to and we felt we had an obligation to our shareholders to act in their interests”
The skills and expertise Mr Jasper gained through building Aconex are now being brought into other companies that are all generating similar growth. He has reinvested funds from the sale back into the Australian technology industry and into high growth businesses where he intends to remain an active investor. Most of all however and spoken like a true entrepreneur, he seems to be fully enjoying the journey…
“I’m a business builder, that’s what I’ve enjoyed most of all over my career, is putting the pieces together to build a business. Some people like building cars or motorbikes or houses …. for me it's putting the pieces together to build a business. That’s what gets me excited and gets me up out of bed every morning. It’s something I find a lot of fun and motivating, to be able to help companies and founders build great companies.”
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