John Linton
.....but only just.
I always like 'billing day', not because of the actual money, but looking at the continued growth of Exetel with increased revenue each month we have been in existence. We did our first 'recurrent' billing' on March 1st 2004 which, from memory, was for something less than $20,000. Because we bill in arrears for all of our telephony, SMS, FAX and other related services a 28 day month is always going to struggle to maintain the 'record', especially after a strong January, and it was the smallest increase we have yet had - but it was an increase. So today's recurrent billing run was the 61st of Exetel's existence and therefore the 60th consecutive record recurrent revenue month.
While such revenue 'records' are pretty meaningless in themselves (only profit really counts) they are milestones along the long and tortuous path of getting a tiny start up business through the first perilous five years of any commercial enterprise's existence.....and we've certainly had to deal with some pretty daunting 'perils' over the past five years. Doubtless there will be more very difficult situations in the future so it does no harm to take a moment or two to look on the bright side once in a while and take some pleasure in the achievements you've been part of bringing about.
Some of the things I'm most happy about are:
1) The sensible view we had right from 'day one' to see forward five years and begin to build the immensely efficient automated systems we now have in place. I am constantly amazed at the skills and knowledge (not to mention the long hours and dedication) displayed by our head of development in constantly accommodating new services and new products into the increasingly complex automated processes we have constantly developed and changed over the past five years. - he has also taught some of our very large suppliers how to design and code a B2B interface better than they appear able to do.
2) To be able to survive for five years through immensely difficult times and hold true to our originally declared basis of being in business - to provide communications services at the lowest cost of any sensible Australian supplier at, almost always, equivalent or better levels of quality and speed. To be able to continually be able to do that across our now quite wide range of services is continually pleasing.
3) To gradually develop a 'complete' suite of communication services for both residential and business users each of which met the original base criteria of being in business and to actually get paid every last cent (well almost) from each customer every month for 61 months (Exetel's payment defaults/bad debts are less than a few hundred dollars a month now after being zero for most months).
4) To only hire people whom we believed we could help develop useful new skills in their career with Exetel and, if they chose to leave Exetel, to look back and understand that their time at Exetel had been of great benefit to them. In five years we have only 'fired' three people and still retain the overwhelming majority of personnel who joined us in our first three years of existence.
5) To operate the business conservatively (no debt for any reason ever) enough so that 'unforeseen' business circumstances would have the least possible effect on Exetel's ability to remain in business - and that policy has certainly been a 'life saver' more than once over the past 5 years.
...and last, but quite significant in it's way - to have accomplished all those things and made a small profit each year to enable us to make some sensible donations to the preservation of Australian native flora and fauna.
Very self indulgent you may well think - but it is so grindingly hard to start up a tiny business and keep it operating that there are few times when you can actually take some satisfaction of what your huge amount of working hours have contributed towards producing.
I think our decision to move most back end functions to Sri Lanka has provided an extra 'layer' of insurance in what look like being very difficult operating conditions in the rest of 2009 and I also think our decision to invest in developing our own 'unique' add on services will pay off over the coming twelve months including our long and agonising decision that we wouldn't take up the "build it and operate if for you for free" ADSL2 DSLAM offers. This was based on our view that HSPA would provide a much safer future for the larger part of the data communications market and we would not have to mortgage our future by betting on a sunset technology (though having seen the predictions of the demise of copper for the last 30 years we did understand that sunsets can go on for a very long time),
I don't have any real idea of what the balance of 2009 will bring other than to believe, along with every person who expresses an opinion in the media, that it will be an increasingly difficult time to be in business. However, reading through the half year reports of the publicly listed telecommunication companies, I'm glad to see that Exetel's half year growth of 25% was far above those companies and we have a lot of plans in place to keep it that way.
Fingers and toes crossed - of course.