If your father gave you $500 what would you do? Buy a Microsoft Xbox One X? Buy rims for your ride? One 19-year-old was presented this scenario and he made he dad’s money work for both of them. Big time. Less than four years later, that young entrepreneur turned that $500 investment into a media empire worth an estimated $570 million. That is a tad bit better than an Xbox One X.
Brandon Evertz from Australia received a $500 loan from his dad and made it count. Brandon was so confident in his business venture that he decided to bypass college in order to make sure he could invest all of his efforts into his enterprise. “The very first proof of concept money I got was $500 from my dad and with that I tested out the idea I had and I was able to generate about $8,000 from businesses right away,” Evertz told Fox Business.
In 2013, Brandon officially launched his company Big Review TV and a year later the business was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange under his father’s company, Big Unlimited. “The company has been nearly listed for three years now and growth has been about 50% revenue growth quarter-for-quarter. So, for the Australian market that is kind of rare to see for a tech company,” Evertz said.
Now at the age of 23-years-old, Evertz is the CEO of Big Review TV. The Big Review TV platform integrates multi-media to provide a go-to hub for people to search, view and review businesses, events and destinations. Brandon’s company operates in seven countries and hosts more than 30,000 user-created videos. Evertz describes Big Review TV as a “video version of TripAdvisor,” where businesses can publicly post videos of their products and services and customers can write a review.
This year Big Review TV reported a net positive cash flow for the first time and have the capital to acquire other companies. Last month, Big Unlimited acquired a Southern California-based review and reward application company to help the company penetrate into the U.S. market. “We actually [have] been in the U.S. for 12 months now and we have over 1,500 businesses so far and then we recently acquired a business called Tipsly,” he said. “The acquisition was really to help beef up our tech for mobile applications and what came with that acquisition is a 100,000 SME relationships in the U.S. So, what we are going to start to do is on-sale our prescription model packages into those in the next 24 months.” Brandon’s advice to young up-and-coming entrepreneurs looking to establish their own business is to find the right backers to invest in the company. Your dad is a great start.
[Fox]